Litany of destruction
by LD 1449
Summary: Ask not the question of your doom. For always shall one receive three answers, all of which are true, and all of which are terrifying to know.
1. Chapter 1

Hello readers, I started this story now for 2 reasons, one because inspiration is quite high for it at the moment, not letting me concentrate on much else and two because its relatively short.

This story should be no more than fifteen chapters long, if everything goes well I should be able to finish it within two to three months time dividing my time between this and Lost Soul.

Speaking of Lost Soul for my other readers out there, the next update is already being written, you can blame this piece for the delay since, as I said, it wasnt letting me concentrate.

Anyway, this is my second Justice League fic, the first of which was very successful (thank you all for that) and I hope I can do just as good this time.

**Important Notice: **This fic is _slightly_ AU from the Justice League cartoon, combining elements from both it and the recent movie Superman Batman Apocalypse. It is still essentially the same Justice League of the series however, so it should be easy to follow.

Also, as a side note, this story has influences and elements of Warhammer 40,000; particularly on the Eldar faction. Its not a crossover and knowledge of Warhammer is not needed to read this fic, just stating it for those of you out there who will infact notice the glaring similarities.

* * *

Ma and Pa-Kent had long ago, resigned themselves to the fact that being the adoptive parents to a beloved, superhuman son would mean that their relatively tranquil lives would be jostled every now and again.

So far they felt they'd mannaged fairly well all things considered, sure there was that one time Clark had broken down his old bedroom wall with a punch he'd thrown in his sleep, and that one comical moment when he thought Pa was trapped in the basement and he tore the doors off their hinges in his rush to get to them.

Small hiccups in the path of their lives really that they could all look back on and smile these days.

Still, nothing could really prepare anyone for the experience of arriving at their two story home in Smallville Kansas, thanksgiving-eve, only to find it demolished more thoroughly than a building that had an appointment with a wrecking ball and a case of dynamite.

And though they forgave their son and newly introduced niece the moment they laid eyes on the wreck, in need of neither explanation nor apologies, it was still with despondent sadness that they milled through the wreckage of their home, picking up half crushed pictures, fingering broken pieces of china and family heirlooms.

"I'm sorry." Clark said to them for the fifth time in as many minutes. "Give me two days and I'll have it completely rebuilt. Basement to attic I promise. Don't be sad." He pleaded, starting to get desperate at the heart wrenching looks on his parents faces cursing Darkseid for what must have been the hundredth time this week.

Why couldn't he have picked somewhere else to show up and fight? Like Metropolis, City hall, The white house, An old Folks home, A day care center? Anywhere was better than his parents living room.

"Oh sweet heart." Ma' said turning around with a bittersweet smile, the same one she always used when she comforted him when he was young. "Its not the house. These are just things. We can always replace them. Its just that..." She trailed off looking around the shattered house.

"Its thanksgiving tomorrow kiddo." Pa' interjected. Wrapping an arm around Ma's shoulders. "It wont be the same having to eat at a restaurant or a hotel for it."

Clark couldn't hide his wince and behind him, Kara shifted, fidgeting with guilt.

To the Kents', Thanksgiving was their favorite, most important holiday. To not be able to celebrate it properly was a much bigger hit than the house was, which, as Clark said, he could rebuild almost completely in a matter of days. And all things within the house were simply material objects they could replace given time.

Soon enough, Pa' Kent shrugged a smile on his face. "Ahh well, when life give's you lemons eh my boy." He said, giving Ma' a kiss atop her head before he pulled away, peeling off his jacket, and beginning to roll up his sleeves.

"Dad!" the man of steel yelled, shocked as his father kneeled down to pull out a piece of shattered wood that lay on the floor.

"Mr. Kent, what are you doing?" Kara said, speaking up for the first time as the man hauled the wood over his shoulder, worried the aging human would hurt himself given his wizened and frail appearance.

But Papa Kent was a farmer, through and through, and though he may not be as strong as he was in his youth, he could still pull his own weight.

With surprising ease he pulled the wood from its place. It must have weighed seventy or eighty pounds of dead weight as he hauled it over his shoulder.

"Dad, come on, let me!" Clark said, picking up the wood as one would pick up a twig, and tossed it clear out of sight. "Let me work on this. Here." Vanishing a moment before returning he held out his credit card, having pulled it from the wallet in his half burnt civilian pants a few yards away. "Take Kara, head to town, book a hotel, get yourself some food, and I'll be done before you know it."

"Now Clark" his mother chastised "You know we're not about to leave you here to do all of this by yourself."

"Besides." Pa cut in again. "Even if we were to get a hotel now its too late to get the turkey for tomorrow son. All the stores are closed. We may as well get started on the work now."

Clark really didn't have much to say to that, it was already five o'clock on a Sunday, thanksgiving eve. He could try to fly to some other city where they might still be open, but he didn't really want to just leave his parents here, since he knew that, for one, they wouldn't have any place to cook the turkey and two, they'd keep on working and could get hurt.

"Why cant you just go to a different house." Kara put in, trying to help the situation as she kneeled down to pick up some debris like Pa' Kent was doing. "Do you have one? Cousin Clark has the fortress, and his home in metropolis, and the Justice League watchtower.

"Oh no my dear, unlike our son we were happy with just one house." Ma said, sitting down on a log with all the grace and poise one would have sitting in an antique chair.

"What about a friend's house?" Clark asked trying to find something to make up for such a major disappointment his adopted parents must be feeling right now.

"Olivia and Mark went to her sister's earlier today." Ma said. "We could go to aunt Jannet's but we'd be arriving short notice and we'd arrive at seven if we left now son. Most people don't like late night visitors."

Like a light bulb, an idea suddenly shot into Superman's head. It was an insane idea. Ludicrous to even think it.

The rational part of his mind screamed at him to stop what he was constructing in his minds eye. To smother it quickly and grant it an early death.

But it was too late, the farm boy Clark Kent felt guilty for the circumstances that led to the destruction of his parents home the eve before thanksgiving. And the farm boy Clark Kent, was going to make it up to his parents by ensuring that they would have a good place to stay and the best chance of enjoying a family meal by tomorrow evening.

"I'll be right back." He said before shooting up into the sky like the dogs of Hades were nipping at his heels.

He was so quick, Kara and the Kent's could only stare in open mouthed bewilderment as he became little more than a red and blue dot up in the distance.

When Ma' Kent's hand gripped her wrist in a gentle tug, Kara looked down into the elderly woman's eyes with a new found nervousness, realizing that she was completely alone with two complete strangers.

"What did you say your name was again dear?"

The woman's warm smile and open eyes were disarming, and Kara felt some of her nervousness dissipate. "M-My name's uh-Kara, Ms. Kent."

"Well." She said scooting over a bit on her favorite log. "Why don't you join me here and tell me about yourself. I'd like to get to know my new niece."

Slowly, but with a growing confidence, she sat. Thinking that, maybe Clark had been right to say his parents would accept her with open arms.

Even if she helped demolish their house...

* * *

**Forty minutes later in Gotham:**

"No"

The answer is simple. Resolute. Finite. Unquestionable. Immovable. It came with the conviction of a man who knew he would not be swayed come hell, shit or high waters.

"But Bruce-" The man of steel ventured again, just the barest hint of a whine in his voice. "It means the world to my parents to have a proper thanksgiving dinner."

"Next time ask Darkseid to politely leave and wait for the day after thanksgiving to bash you and your cousins skulls in." The Dark Knight answered, typing some commands on one of the consoles before he began marching towards the main computer. "This is your problem, not mine."

"Come on!" Clark tried again. "They already know who you are, its not like I'll be risking your secret."

"They know who I am?" Bruce asked, his tone edgy and dangerous. Clark ignored it.

"It didn't take em long to figure it out after the third interview me and Lois did with you and the fact that it was the third time I'd worked together with Batman. We're from Kansas Bruce, not from La-La land.

Bruce shook his head and began typing even harder than before. "Leave Kent."

Normally, the conversation would be over at this point. But Clark was too desperate, and the farm boy in him that loved his parents to death would stand here and beckon the dark Knight's hospitality all night this time.

"Come on Bruce! You've got three dining rooms and lord knows how many bedrooms. The only thing we'd have to share would be the kitchen! And you never go in there anyway! You'd never even know we're here."

"Leave Clark."

"Bat-"

"Leave."

There was silence only for a moment before...

"I'll throw the batmobile over that ravine." He said, pointing to the deep, dark pit that was crested the side of said vehicle's parking platform.

For the first time since the Man of steel's arrival the clicking on computer keys stops abruptly, pausing as the Dark knight turned very slowly to deliver a rather incredulous look over his shoulder.

Superman answered the expression with a challenging one of his own.

Then, again with deliberate slowness, The Wayne Patriarch turns right back around and continues where he left off.

Resolutely, Clark turns and begins marching towards the batmobile.

"I still have the little green rock, Kent. It'd be wise for you to stop right there."

Clark does stop but only to turn and look with his X ray vision onto the utility belt, wondering which was the right spot to throw his heat vision through and melt his green nemesis.

Unfortunately, the compartments in that belt were properly shielded against such measures. Clark nearly choked on his spit. The man was more paranoid than he gave him proper credit for.

Luckily however, at that point, Alfred, who had heard the entirety of the conversation from his place at the stairwell, cup of coffee in hand began to descend the stairs again with both males being none the wiser to his eavesdropping. A true feat considering one's pride at being aware of his surroundings at all times and the other having super human hearing.

"Ahem." He said, announcing his arrival out of courtesy. "Good evening master-" He paused for half a heartbeat, the half burned and torn state of Superman's suit catching him off guard for the span of two nano-seconds. "Kent." He continued, barely missing a beat. "Is extra crispy in fashion this thanksgiving sir? I was not aware."

"Ehe." Clark laughed, somewhat nervously, realizing just now what a sight he must look. "It was just a fight. Darkseid attacked me in my parents home in smallville."

"I trust your parents are well sir?"

"Yea." Clark answered, clearly relieved at that fact. "But the house isn't I came here hoping my _old buddy_ Bruce here." He shot over his shoulder at the stoic dark knight. "Would be nice enough to give my parents a place to stay and the chance to not miss out on thanksgiving by having to spend it in some kitchen-less hotel.

"Shouldn't keep your hopes up." Bruce retorted simply, never looking away from whatever forensic analysis graced his screen.

"And at what time should we be expecting Mr. and Mrs. Kent Master Clark? Alfred interjected. Looking for all intents and purposes as though Bruce had given his thorough, unquestionable blessings to their coming here.

For the second time, the typing stopped, and Bruce turned again, narrowing a glare onto his mentor, father figure and life long friend.

He opened his mouth to speak.

"Master Bruce. Certainly I have taught you better than to callously turn your back upon people in need. A friend no less."

Alfred's tone never shifted from that polite little droll he spoke to virtually everyone with. But still, Bruce felt the pang of guilt his words brought on like a spear through his ribs.

The guilt wasn't because he turned Clark away in the first place but rather because Alfred used those little magic words.

_-Certainly I have taught you better-_

The use of those words was like a defibrillator to his conscience, the guilt that came from disappointing Alfred would always rear its ugly head, though the man would hardly ever express such a sentiment, it always seemed too apparent to Bruce, and like any child with a disappointed parent (such as Clark himself) He wanted to make things right.

He was a man firm in his convictions come hell, shit or high water. But Alfred could top all those things and then some.

Lowering his head, just slightly in his seat the Dark Knight sighed through his nostrils. "They can come."

"Great!" Clark's yell could shake the foundations of the manor, and his smile was blinding. "Thank's Bruce."

"I shall prepare the guest room's for yourself and your parents then sir." Alfred said.

Then he noticed Clarks expression. "Is there anything else sir?"

Bruce, who was just about to turn around back to his computer paused, and eyed the wary Kent again.

"Uhh yea, my cousin, Kara is coming too...may have forgotten to mention that."

Seeing an opening a mile wide here, Alfred took it, with all the precision and poise of a skilled assassin delivering the killing blow, or of a chess master arranging the final pieces to end his opponent in a flourish of moves he would never see coming. "Will anyone else be coming sir? I imagine that the Princess Diana, or Sir J'hon would find themselves lonely at this time of year. From my understanding they no longer have or cannot return to their homes or family. Perhaps they should be invited as well."

From the very corner of his peripheral vision. He saw Bruce's expression, a startled mixture of shock and disbelief.

The young man opened his mouth to speak but, as predicted, at the last moment, he choked down the words. Alfred knew it was wrong to manipulate him like this. But he was the only one who could, and did it so rarely that he consoled himself with the knowledge that _-he'll live-_. Besides. If all worked out, it would ultimately be for his own good.

"Hmmm." Kent said scratching his chin. "Yea you're right, Alfred, I should do that! J'hon and Diana do deserve a thanksgiving with friends" And, predictably floated off as the chess master wished.

For his own part, Bruce didn't know how he'd gotten from _'No'_ to _'We have five guests tomorrow for thanksgiving. Wear something nice.'_

Where did it all go wrong?

Neither male noticed the positively _evil _smile that spread across the Butler's face before vanishing entirely as though it were never there.

For all his blessings of the mind. Master Wayne still could not see the checkmates his loyal butler delivered until it was far too late.


	2. Chapter 2

Nervous would not even begin to cover the emotions she was feeling at this point.

Ever since she'd come to Patriarch's world she'd focused almost solely on her duties. If not to the justice league then to the various charity and good will functions she deigned were worthwhile enough to go to.

Those with the tittle of "sponsor this add of footwear" was not her definition of worthwhile.

Still, as it was, this was going to be her first outing that did not involve high heels and a dress.

So yes, she was nervous.

But, squaring her shoulder's she'd decided early on that she'd face the problem of her nervousness like she faced every other problem.

Head on.

So it was with Amazonian pride, and the fact that Batman still owed her a dance, backing her will that she descended to Gotham City and the infamous Wayne manor, keeping as out of sight as she could in the middle of the day before she landed right outside the front door."

She moved to knock, when suddenly the door was opened before her hand had even curled into a loose fist.

The prim and poised visage of Alfred Pennyworth stood there, as though having been waiting for her.

"Princess Diana." He said, bowing his neck as he smiled before stepping to the side, allowing her entry.

"Hello-Alfred isn't it?" She asked taking a tentative step inward.

"Yes madam" He answered. "You're right on time, the dinner is almost prepared, Master Clark, and young miss Kara are in the main living room Mr. and Mrs. Kent are both in the kitchen. I will join them in preparing the meal shortly. I believe Master Bruce is with Master Clark and Miss Kara as well.

At that, Diana raised an eyebrow. "He's not down in some recluse somewhere?"

"I believe he decided to join the festivities when he realized kryptonite would not work on the Mrs. Kent as well as it would on Master Clark. I must ask the lady for her methods before she leaves us."

Unbidden, an image came to her mind of the scowling dark knight trying to ward off an older woman with a block of kryptonite, with said older woman responding by beating him with a walking stick until he emerged from the cave and started having some fun.

She quickly tried to curb her humor, the corners of her mouth twitching with half success.

Alfred raised a slender, knowing eyebrow, then mercifully distracted her from her thoughts by asking "Will Sir J'hon not be joining us this evening Princess?"

Unfortunately, his question brought just a slight melancholy to her mood. "No, J'hon volunteered to stay behind at the watchtower to stay on monitor duty. He and I were assigned this posting for the week since Shayera is gone and since...well." She trailed off. "When we got the invitation, J'hon said someone needed to keep an eye on things and that I may as well enjoy myself."

Her guilt at leaving Jhon was becoming a little too apparent for Alfred's tastes, gently, the English gentleman took her hand, patting it softly. "If I may be so bold madam; Sir, J'hon gave you this opportunity to enjoy yourself. Do not waste it thinking sorrowful thoughts."

Diana smiled, she'd barely known him for two minutes but Already she could tell she was going to like the man. "Thank you Alfred. Can you tell me where the Kitchen is?"

"Follow me Princess Diana." He said with another small bow of the head before closing the door and marching down the hallway.

As they walked, she took in the decorum of the Mansion's interior, far different than any architecture she would find on Themyscira, it held a strange sort of appeal.

Where on paradise island any building would find itself at home next to a river, or field of wildflowers, or even luscious green mountains, here this house seemed to fit perfectly with both the city and owner. Dark, mahogany wood, suits of plate armor lining the wall, she even saw a picture of a stuffed Raven over what she assumed to be the living room fireplace.

Yes. She could picture this as Batman's residence almost perfectly. The thought brought a sardonic little smile to her face.

But as they continued just a little ways further down, she found her ears picking up the sound of laughter, muted as it was.

With a soft knock, more out of courtesy than anything else since he really didn't wait for the answer to come in, Alfred opened the door and Diana's senses immediately became aware of the bright, friendly atmosphere, the smiling, laughing faces of Superman, his newly found cousin, and surprising of all, the owner of this home they currently occupied

Bruce sat in a large, leather chair, at the other side of the room from where she entered, a small cup of what she assumed to be coffee in his hand, trying, possibly desperately to eliminate that small upturn of his lips and replace it with his patented scowl.

So far, he was obviously failing.

"I present Princess Dianna of Themyscira" Alfred said formally as he stepped aside, allowing her, in all her jeans and tennis sneaker glory to march on through.

Clark and Kara stopped their conversation, turning, almost in unison to face her, their smiles stretching across their faces.

"Diana!" Clark said, marching forward and enveloping her in a hug.

Surprised, by the informal welcome, having long been used to the more distanced status-quo of the Justice League's leader addressing a comrade, she did not immediately react, when she did Kal-El was already pulling away, the smile still on his face. "I'm glad you could make it."

"So am I." She answered. "Hope I'm not late or anything."

"You're not." Bruce answered her simply before taking another sip of his drink.

She smiled, hugging Kara as she addressed him. "I'm surprised you're anywhere to be seen. It is daylight after all." She quipped, smiling gently.

He returned the expression. "The threat of a lady's cane is a powerful incentive to brave the daylight princess.

The image from earlier returned to her mind and the laughter she'd bitten down before returned with a vengeance and she found it literally clawing its way past her lips in a broken hiss before she could clamp down and stop herself. The Batman she knew didn't like to be laughed at much.

But today he must have been in an absolutely marvelous mood because the smile he'd already been struggling to put down became just a bit more pronounced.

"Diana." Kara said, drawing her attention away from the Dark Knight. "Come over here, you have to try some of the stuff at the Bar, I saw Alfred make this mixture that's just to die for."

"Hey!" Clark said, clearly worried at his cousins attentiveness to the alcohols in Bruce's selection, some of which would knock him flat on his ass with just a few shots, Kryptonian physiology or not. "Since when do you drink?"

"Since I learned that mixture." She answered back.

Shaking his head where he sat, Bruce mentally shrugged. He never drank (Though Alfred could make a B-52 to kill for) so those spirits may as well go to some use.

As he swallowed some more of the hot drink in his hand the Billionaire found himself smiling just a little more. The peacefulness of the house was strange. And he wasn't really sure what had brought this feeling within him. Normally, holidays like this, or Christmas brought on various, other feelings, most of which were not positive. But this time, he felt more at peace than he had in a long time.

Maybe he'd resigned himself, figuring somewhere he may as well enjoy it rather than make Kent's parents feel awkward and out of place with his normal moodiness. Or maybe just the general good nature of the family and genuine feelings of contentment were simply too infectious even for his emotional buffers.

Whatever it was, it was strange.

But it was a good kind of strange.

A part of him felt guilty for various reasons. For not having given Dick or Tim the Heads-up about the event early enough for them to return. They'd always pestered him about not celebrating Thanksgiving.

Another guilt came from allowing his guard to lower like this, infront of two other league members no less, and three virtual strangers.

And the last part felt guilty simply because he was truly enjoying this event.

But those thought's were distant, and as he watched Kent worriedly glancing at his cousin as she mixed a drink for her and Diana, and the Princess' own amused smile he decided that, just for one day, he'd let himself indulge, and relax.

One day only.

* * *

The sun was only just beginning to rise along the island of Themyschira, the golden rays of the sun cut through the thick blanket of clouds left in the wake of the passing night.

Before those rays of light had graced the gentle shores of the secluded paradise however, Antheia was already awake, and finishing her morning rituals.

She hadn't always been this to be sure. She'd walked many paths within her life here on the blessed islands. She'd been a warrior to be sure, all amazonian sisters had been at some point before leaving that road for others.

Of course, as immortals they could not remain with one profession for their entire lives. She'd done many things. Warrior, Poet, Sculptor, Philosopher, there were many others; servitude was just the latest in her long line of professions, and though such a thing may seem as a significant step down from her previous roles she found that there was a definite feeling of contentment in the simplicity of her role here.

Of course there were others, others who could not leave a path once they've begun to walk it. Like Philippus and Artemis, both entrenched firmly onto the path of the warrior since the exodus of their people onto the island more than two thousand years ago. Or Galene, who still resided within the realms of the artist after nearly a full millennium.

Still, there were times when Antheia wished for more than the idilic shores had to offer. Times that she wished she could experience what the Princess must be witnessing in the lands beyond this protected place. When she'd brought men from Patriarchs world to defeat Felix Faust and reseal Hades into the hellish abyss of his prison she'd raised questions in her mind that the Amazonian women as a whole had all but buried over the times that they lived here.

Were there other men like the one's she'd brought here?

Did they offer to come to the Princess' aid freely or had the chosen of the god's needed to satisfy some boon in exchange?

Unlike most of the Amazonian's, whom had each been working on repairing and rebuilding the palace's foundations and temple's which had been damaged, and desecrated by Faust respectively, she'd had the privilege of actually seeing the men whom had come to save their island before they were sent off.

There was the one whom had called himself 'Superman. Though his name seemed to border upon the egotistical, Antheia could see reason for such when he'd lifted a stone pillar as though it weighed no more than a child's toy.

Pulling herself away from her thoughts, she finished fastening her tunic, she walked out of the quarters then, slipping on her leather sandals before descending the sloping hill towards the gurgling stream at the base of the incline, a washbowl held in her hands.

Antheia pulled up her clothing, fisting it in one hand before she marched in, ankle deep in the ice cold water.

She shivered, but the momentary discomfort was soon over and she dipped the bowl into the churning water with practiced ease as she continued to allow her thoughts to drift through her mind.

Clad in blue and red, the man had seemed a Paragon of Patriarchs world that had come to aid them.

The remnant's of her walk along the path of the artist could be seen in Antheia's eyes as she related the one called Superman to their own Princess Diana. To think the princess would leave to save Patriarchs world only to have the best of theirs come in turn to save Themyscira. The value of such Irony was not lost on her.

Then there was the other one, dressed in red, the Flash.

Antheia's lips dipped down into a scowl.

Now, _that, _was an example of the Male she'd remembered from the dark days before their blessed ascension to this paradise.

Blatant lust in eyes that could not remain anywhere above the neck, confidence born of ignorance and sheer stupidity. That one, was one who'd left many of the palace guards itching for a fight day's after he'd gone.

Where the Superman and the others had been the picture of poise and dignity. The flash was the picture of moronic barbarism barely above that of the Spartans. And he was far more juvenile.

The Dark Skinned one had been much more polite. Though both he and the Green skinned...creature...for she was sure it was no human that had walked these shores, had said much less than the other two, the other one. The one dressed all in black, he'd said nothing at all.

Those eyes of his though. Antheia, repressed a shudder.

The princess certainly kept _interesting _company_._

She reached her quarters again, slipping off her sandals she marched into her rooms, plucking a rose from the bush just outside. She placed the washbowl on the center table before separating the flower petal's from the bud and spread it across the water.

She reached across the table, grasping a vial of oil before dipping a few drops into the water as well.

Then, standing, she began to make her way towards the Queen's bedchamber, as the sun began to rise clearly over the horizon.

As she made her way closer, she was not certain how encouraging it was that, out of the five males the princess had brought here to save Themyscira, she only trusted one to keep the princess safe.

It was a few minutes later that Antheia found herself opening the door to the Queen's bedchamber. "My lady." She called softly by means of announcing herself as she'd done for years now.

As she opened the door however, the washbowl slipped from her numb fingers, and a cry of shock and fear found life as it rose from her throat.

Queen Hypolata lay on the cold stone floor, her life's blood escaping her blue tinged lips and her skin a pallor of ashen gray

Hour's later, as night crept up on the city of Gotham, an odd assortment of friends sat within the Wayne mannor study.

"Nah- do you remember the first time we met?" Clark Kent asked, chuckling in his seat as the ice in his glass clinked, settling.

Bruce smirked. "I remember throwing you into a wall."

Cocking her eyebrow, the dark haired female among them leaned back against her seat. "You two mind telling? Or is this what Flash calls an inside joke?"

Coughing out another laugh Clark shook his head. "No. We'd been investigating Luthor."

"He was trying to muscle in a partnership with Wayne enterprises." Bruce added. "So, I spied on him eventually, I was interrogating a suspect and Clark here-"

"You mean beating the crap out of him while throwing a question or two in between punches."

"Clark bumbled in on the situation." He continued, as though he'd never even heard the Daily Planet reporter speak. "Eventually, that ended up with me throwing him into a wall and he nearly breaking three of my ribs."

"I barely even touched you." the Kryptonian said defensively, catching Diana's shocked look.

"Clark. Your breath can flash freeze people, or create gale force winds. A 'tap' from you is like being hit by a baseball bat."

"Well to keep him in line after that, I used my X-ray vision to see who he was." Clark continued, deciding to move on from this part of their meeting.

Diana raised an eyebrow, looking at Bruce with an incredulous gaze. "I imagine that didn't sit well with you for long."

"It didn't sit at all." He barked, as though insulted by the very notion that Superman had managed to one-up him in any way. "I stuck a tracking device on his cape, and followed him to his house. After that he couldn't hold my identity over my head anymore than I could hold his."

"Oh god, and then you started dating Lois!" Clark exclaimed, smacking his head as though he were just about ready to fight off a migraine.

Now 'that' caught Diana's attention. She'd heard much of the, by now, infamous Lois Lane, or rather Superman's infatuation with her. Batman was either very brave or very stupid.

"How did you end up becoming friends?" She found herself asking. "One would think you'd be at eachother's throats."

The two men had no answers for the Princess. Infact, they were now muling the question over themselves. Looking at each other a silent question passed between them. _"Why _are_ we friends?"_

The group of three were interrupted by a door opening and as one, they turned their heads to see Kara floating in, an exuberant smile on her face, followed closely by Alfred, Jonathan and Martha Kent.

"Here you are!" The newest member of the smallville family said, floating down to sit by Diana's side on the couch. "This house is so big you could get lost here."

_You have no idea._ Bruce thought to himself with a smirk.

"Mr. Wayne, I just want to say again how grateful we are for your hospitality-" Jonathan began to say for the umpteenth time since he'd arrived yesterday night.

"Really Mr. Kent its nothing. Bruce said, ignoring the pointed looks Alfred and Clark delivered. "This house is so empty I'm more than happy to have some company."

If either of Clark's parent's caught the _look_ their son was giving him they hid it well.

"You're too kind Mr. Wayne" Martha said, placing a hand on his shoulder before sitting herself on another couch across from Diana and Kara, her husband soon joining her, sitting between her and Clark. "To tell the truth, when my boy said we would be joining you in your home for thanksgiving I scarcely believed it."

"Oh it came as quite a shock to me too." Bruce chuckled, though he glared at both of the perpetrators responsible, though it was with very little venom.

"You have to admit, you had fun though right?" Diana asked, smirking at him.

Gotham's caped crusader chose to answer that by taking another sip of his drink.

Diana smiled a little wider. "Well, I had fun. Ms. Martha and Mr. Kent, you made a delicious dinner."

"I'll say" Supergirl said, barely holding in a sigh as she remembered the turkey nearly melting in her mouth and the sublime taste of the gravy.

"Oh its because Alfred kept such a well stock of ingredients." Martha said.

"Thank you madam." The Englishman said gracefully from his place by the door.

"And the appliances were incredible." Jonathan said, smiling as he remembered the first time he'd laid eyes on that JB700SNSS deluxe electric stove. Now, Jonathan was a fire man, through and through. Electric stoves were for city dwellers and a Kansas born and raised man like him knew that the only way to cook a proper meal was with good old fashioned fire.

But Sweet lord above that stove was incredible, large, easily capable of fitting the numerous large pots needed to cook the entire meal at the same time.

The Oven had let them cook both the turkey and the garlic buns at the same time. Normally it was such a hassle to cook them both quickly enough so that they could eat everything while it was still hot.

And the knives! The Knives could cut through anything with such ease.

It was with a small shake on his shoulder that Jonathan found himself waking up in the Wayne household, with more than one pair of eyes staring at him in curious worry.

"Honey, are you alright?" Martha asked gently.

"Oh yes, yes." He answered quickly, hoping to alleviate his wife's fears and worries. "Just fine. Err, Mr. Wayne, how much did that stove cost you?"

"Seventy-five thousand dollars."

Jonathan choked on his own spit.

Before the conversation could continue however, the three league members paused, tensing as the familiar presence of their friend J'hon snaked its way through their minds.

_'Come to the watchtower.'_

It was simple, to the point. J'hon never used his telepathy unless absolutely necessary out of courtesy and neither would he summon all three of them for something trivial.

Bruce smiled, standing up as he finished off the ginger ale he'd been passing off as Alcohol. "Well, it's been fun. I mean that." He actually did. "But...duty calls."

The older couple looked confused for a moment before Clark stood up, removing his glasses and placing them on the table.

They got the hint.

Leaning down, he kissed the two on the top of the head. "Love ya dad, Love ya mom, hope you enjoyed your thanksgiving."

"Bless you sweetie."

"You take care boy."

"Yes sir." Clark answered smiling before pulling away, following Diana and Bruce who'd already started walking towards the room's exit.

"Can I come?"

The three heroes stopped, turning and finding the young Kara standing up from her place on the couch.

"No."

"Yes"  
"Can you control yourself?"

The three heroes each shared a glance, well, more a glare in Bruce's case.

"She's not coming." The Billionaire bit out, apparently the reservoir of goodwill had completely evaporated with the Telepath's call.

Pulling Bruce out of earshot from his parents, it wasn't long before the three made something of a miniature huddle as the discussion began.

"Bruce, she'll need to get experience somewhere." Clark put forward. "It may as well be with us where we can keep an eye on her."

"You don't bring a raw rookie into the big leagues for the experience Clark."

"She fought Darkseid one on one and held her own. I say that gives her some points."

"One on one is different from teamwork. She's not ready and I'm not gonna take the risk."

"Would the two of you just shut up." Diana hissed making both male's seal their lips and turn their gaze onto her. "Kara, come here."

Quickly the young blond moved forward, swallowing thickly with apprehension before glaring at Batman.

He glared back.

Guess who won.

Taking her place between Wonder Woman and Superman, the Kryptonian watched Diana as the Amazon placed a hand to her shoulder.

"Alright Kara, I'm just going to ask you a few questions. First, do you promise to follow Orders."

Enthusiastically, with a bit of hope sparking in her eyes, she nodded. "Yea sure."

"Second, if we tell you to leave, no mater what the situation, you will leave?"

Again, another nod.

"And you do know that if you're lying to me the chances of my trusting you in any assignment ever again will be very hard to win back."

Hesitation, then, another slow nod.

The Amazon looked to the caped crusader, a smile on her lips. "Well, I don't see why she can't test herself.

Glaring, the Dark Knight found, that the only thing that was stopping him from continuing the argument, was that firstly, a lone human against three Metas with no gadgets and/or kryptonite ...even the Batman had some limits.

And secondly, there was the fact that they didn't know the full extent of the mission, so outright denying a potential resource the chance to come along before the threat could be measured was quite a stupid move.

"Fine." He ground out, Loathe as he was to loose an argument, he'd lost this one. "She's your responsibility though Kent."

Clark smiled through the scathing tone.

Bruce grimaced. He needed friends he could intimidate.

Hours later, the group of four descended the ramp of the Javelin towards the Watchtower's hangar, finding J'hon waiting on the other side of the airlock doors.

"What's the problem J'hon?: Superman asked, stepping closer.

"I'm afraid there is someone attempting to call us. She keeps repeating the same thing over and over again in her mind and has been doing so determinedly for an hour now. I have not contacted her back. I felt as though I should speak with you before going further.

"Well what was the message?" Kara asked, earning a stern glare from the dark knight, which clearly translated into _'Shut...up..._'

She edged away from him just a bit.

J'hon's eyes glowed for a moment, and then, the four found the voice he'd been focusing on their minds.

_'Justice League, please hear me. I am Antheia, handmaiden of Queen Hipolata of Themischera. We need your assistance – Justice league, please hear me.-"_


	3. Chapter 3

The Javelin's engines thrummed beneath their feet, subtle vibrations shaking up the soles and into the bones of their legs.

Normally, the sensation was subtle and brought the user a lulling relaxation.

But in the silence that now stifled the Javeline's hollowed insides, Kara Zor-El found it only served to emphasize the lack of conversation to the point of pain.

She wasn't stupid, she could deduce that Diana's sentiments towards her homeland would be sensitive and so brought a fair degree of tact and caution when approaching it in conversation which explained why her Cousin wasn't saying anything at the moment.

Clark was good at a lot of things dealing with uncomfortable conversations was not necessarily one of them.

And as for Bruce.

Well...for all she knew the Dark Knight was happy to simply have everyone stay quiet no matter what, so he was no better.

But that left her so _bored._ Clark was a great listener, but she didn't think it would be appropriate to discuss the latest movie she'd seen or something equally as frivolous, given the circumstances.

So, with ever increasing awkwardness and effort, she fought down the overwhelming urge to ask _Are we there yet?_

She was eventually rewarded for her efforts, because within the next few minutes, they were touching down.

* * *

Antheia struggled all day to hide her nervousness at the Justice League's impending arrival. Philipus and Artemis' scouring of the palace and interrogations of the staff had not helped her nerves much either.

Neither had the fact that _she'd_ been the one to actually _find _the queen.

The only one's who resided over the queen now were Philipus' elites, _'The Companions'_ Those who guarded the Queen herself rather than just the palace. Amazon's who, Like Philipus, Captain of the Guard, and Artemis, Captain of the soldiers, had walked the path of the Warrior for millenia and would be walking it still, a millenia hence.

Needless to say, they were intimidating.

And all servants who entered for the queens medications and treatments were screened and searched thoroughly. They also needed to give two doses from the same bottle, one to an appointed Companion, and one to the queen. If the various healers Philipus had at her side found the medications and herbs doing anything out of the ordinary to either the queen, or the companion, the servants would have to answer for much.

But still, for all of Philipus' anger and harsh methods of extracting information, none knew what had happened, and none knew what would happen should the Queen's end come. Hipolata had led her people since before their exodus, her leadership was invaluable and pivotal. With her daughter gone, and with no means of contacting her; Antheia could easily deduce what would happen after the Queen's death.

She'd seen it enough in Patriarchs world when she still resided there.

Civil disruption, conflict over who should lead. Which would lead in the end to war and bloodshed.

This needed to be avoided.

And so, though wary, and frightened of those in Patriarchs world, she'd made her attempt to contact the Justice League, remembering the rumor that one amongst them could read the thoughts of others.

She hadn't been certain that her attempt would succeed.

But succeed it did, and now she didn't know what she would do once Philipus and Artemis found out that she'd blatantly broken the laws of their home and called back, not only men, but an exile of their people as well.

The only thing she could think to do to at the very least _stall;_ was asking them to approach from the far side of the island, away from others. So that she would meet them there.

Only now, as night crept up on her and the shadows snaked their way across the ground, and the chittering noises of the islands wildlife made itself known, did she begin to regret the choice.

She shook her mind from it, waiting in the shadow of a tree as she saw a glimmer appear in the distance.

She squinted through the darkness. And gasped as the ship came to full view. She'd seen it during the day, when they came here the first time, but with the backdrop of the night sky, trailing white fire behind its pointed tip. It glimmered like the spear thrown by Myrina herself into the heart of a Gorgon. Shining and beautiful. She could scarcely imagine that the world of men could make something so splendorous and graceful.

It looped through the sky, its trail of fire curving behind it before she saw it halt near the next clearing.

With hurried steps, she made her way closer, palms sweaty, heart hammering in her chest, and trying to recall just what the hell she'd been thinking when she sent out that call for help.

* * *

As the loading ramp descended from the back of the Javelin, the four heroes marched down, taking in their surroundings, devoid of any illumination save the half obscured moon

"Certainly not a big welcome huh?" Supergirl commented, her head swiveling to and fro.

"What you should be asking is, why ask us to drop down here?" Batman cut in. "As subtle as we were, the Amazonian's at the palace must have seen us."

Whether he was being sarcastic or not in the mention of their subtlety, none knew. Regardless, Clark answered.

"Antheia was probably scared at having called us and wanted to bring us somewhere where she could at least brace herself before we meet the other amazons."

"Possibly." Bruce responded. Suddenly, his hand snaked out, clasping around Diana's bracelet covered wrist with what would have been bruising strength to a Non-Meta, stopping her just seconds before she took off to the castle. "We'll be walking there Princess."

Scowling, the Dark haired heroin pulled her arm out of his hand.

"I need to see my mother." She said, her voice firm and unyielding.

"And you will." He answered, calm as ever, as his hand returned to the folds of his cape. "But whoever this is, clearly targeted Hipolata, she, or possibly he, must have known you'd be coming. They may have lain a trap. So we're going together."

She knew he was right, he usually was. But her anxiety over her mother's condition was wreaking havoc on her nerves and his so sure attitude did not help at all.

"You cant stop me."

"I cant." He conceded. "I'll follow you into the town square with the Javelin though. I bet that wont go over too well with your sisters."

She sighed through her nostrils, crossing her arms before all of them descended the ramp before sealing the ship.

"Someone's coming." Supergirl said, her ears giving a subtle twitch as they caught sound of footsteps and a beating heart.

"I hear her too." Clark verified.

"Congratulations." Bruce snarled. "Where is she coming from."

Both gestured to the right.

Seconds later a woman, dark haired, wearing a simple white tunic with a blue sash shambled her way through the foliage, panting for breath.

"Princess Diana!" She breathed, a nervous smile that spoke of all her fears and insecurities about this plea for help visible with every line on her face.

"Antheia." Diana greeted, a strange mix of relief and apprehension running through her chest. "What has happened?"

But the handmaiden didn't look as though she'd heard her question, her eyes rested on Superman and Batman, her worry; already having been visible before, became an almost a palpable thing now.

Deciding to break the ever increasing tension Kara chose to take the initiative. Stepping forward she extended her hand. "Hi, I'm Supergirl."

Blinking, as if just noticing the young female, Antheia looked to the extended hand for a moment before deducing the form of greeting. Extending her own hand she, to Supergirl's mild surprise, gripped the blond's forearm instead of her hand. In reflex the kryptonian did the same, watching her strength.

"Antheia." She answered "I had not seen you during the Princess'...previous return to Themyschera."

"Nah, I'm new." The Kriptonian said with simple honesty.

The lighthearted nature of the conversation ceased, as Diana walked right up next to the two. Being taller than both women, brought a new level of intimidation to the words that were all but bitten out of her mouth. "What has happened, Antheia?"

The royal handmaiden stiffened, warily watching Batman and Superman who still stood within earshot. "Princess, are you certain yo-"

"What happened?" The Champion of the Gods all but snarled her patience running thin. Bruce hid a smirk.

Realizing that the princess did not care of the men present, and was more than anxious to hear of what could be so dire that she would be summoned back to the island in this manner, the handmaiden reluctantly relented.

"The queen has been poisoned."

Though she felt as though she'd been kicked in the chest by Kal El himself, the discipline of her upbringing kept her features relatively stoic and composed. "By whom?" The only thing that gave her away, were the clenched fists at her side, which shook with thoughts and promises of retribution and vengeance.

"We do not know. But...the possibility that..." She trailed off.

"You think its another Amazon." Batman put forward the most obvious conclusion. "And you don't know who to trust now, so you called in a third party outside the island"

Antheia though she hesitated, nodded. "Exactly. As you well know my princess, all of us are allowed to see the queen should we request an audience. It could have been anyone! Anywhere! Sister Philippus is tearing the palace apart searching for any clue that may be found. Sister Artemis has doubled the guard in every corner of the castle."

Batman stepped forward, his shoulder to hers as he looked through the lenses of his cowl. "We've already wasted too much time." Bruce said. "If any evidence from that crime scene, which is completely contaminated at this point, is going to be salvaged, we need to move now."

Diana nodded, suddenly very grateful she'd brought Bruce with her. If anyone could do this, it would be him. She could think of no one better.

"That may have to wait a bit; the welcoming party is here." Clark announced

About thirty seconds later the three non kryptonians heard it, the dull thunder of hooves striking dirt.

Horses.

A lot of horses.

In a rush of glinting steel blades, armor of bronze and hundreds of pounds of raw muscle and power, the group found themselves surrounded, spear-tips and arrowheads held at the ready to strike on a single word or suspicious gesture.

Then one Amazon broke through the throng, having dismounted from her horse, her armor was plated in shining silver, fine craftsmanship, by blacksmiths that had spent hundreds of years perfecting their art. A fact which showed in every gentle curve and fold of the metalwork.

"Princess Diana." Said the Warrior, bowing once before removing her helmet, revealing hair the color of the setting sun.

"Artemis." Diana greeted back.

"Your exile is still in effect Princess." It was not a taunt, or a threat. It was a matter of fact. The woman's green, razor sharp eyes swiveled over to Antheia. "I am curious to know how it is your arrive immediately after this...development."

Antheia shrunk back, as though trying to make Artemis look away by seeming incredibly small.

She was soon shielded from the warrior's sight by Superman's broad chest as he stood protectively infront of her.

"It doesn't matter. We're here now to help discover who did this to the queen and help resolve the situation." He said, staring at the woman who matched his height.

Artemis narrowed her eyes at the Superman, though there was no real anger or malice there. More like...annoyance.

"You would be 'The Superman.' I imagine." It was half a question, half a statement. When Artemis looked to Diana it was full of scathing disdain. "I thought I and your other tutors had taught you more respect for the laws of your people than this. You repeat the crimes that brought forth your exile to begin with."

"You taught me very well." Diana answered back, not shaken in the least. "I remember every law of our people. Even _'Magnatorse aveporvou' _

As though those words were a physical blow, Artemis reeled, visibly flinching as she looked at the Princess.

Kara, confused, opened her mouth to ask-

"Law of the empty throne."

The blond looked to Bruce, who hadn't even looked at her as he answered her, as yet unspoken query. Was J'hon helping him or something?

Diana for her part, looked rather pleased with herself as she stared at her old mentor. A smirk tugging at her lips despite the situation. "When the ruling queen is no longer fit, or is unable to fulfill her duties, the heir to the throne can and must assume stewardship of the lands until such a time comes when the monarch may return to her station."

Artemis, narrowed her eyes on the Princess, her disdain for such a tactic clear enough in her gaze as she put her helmet back on and returned to mount her horse.

"Come with us then, Princess."

And though, none could see her face, the sneer was all but impossible to miss.

* * *

Nearly an hour later, as she knelt at her mother's bedside, one hand gripping the clammy, coldness of her mother's, the other resting across her bent knee in a fist, the princess tried again to beat back her tears by strength of will alone.

She was succeeding; but slowly.

When they'd arrived, at the head of nearly two hundred female soldiers on horseback, needless to say, the civilians of Themischera had been in quite a state.

She barely offered Philippus an explanation before marching through the castle to the royal bedchamber.

When she'd finally reached the room, had she not been their princess, she was sure the Companion's would not have hesitated to cut down such an unguarded opponent, who's only focus was to reach her mothers side.

As it was, she'd been kneeling there for almost thirty minutes, doing little more than praying litanies of faith to Asclepius. Hoping that her mother could hear her voice in her unconscious state.

Too soon however, the black talon fell onto her shoulder. "Princess...I'm going to need the room cleared." He said as gently as he allowed himself to be, clad in the suit of the Bat.

Though part of her was annoyed by the interruption, another part of her took comfort in his reassuring presence. A rock against the tide. He was always sure, always certain. And more importantly, she knew he already had something in mind to distract her with. Always two steps ahead.

She stood, nodding in compliance. And, as expected he spoke again.

"While I'm doing this, you and Superman should go and round up all the names on this list." He handed her a slip of papyrus, on which were scrawled several names. "These are all the people who had access, and still have access to this room. Round them up, bring them to one of the rooms in the palace. Then, I need you to head back to the mansion with Superman. Pick up all the equipment from Vault four, Alfred will let you in."

"Go back to the mansion?" She echoed, caught completely off guard. "Bruce, I think it'd be best if-"

"Trust me Diana." He interrupted, just the barest hint of a plea in his voice. "Go back, and get the equipment."

He never needed to ask for her trust. She knew that. And so, without further hesitation she nodded, and stepped out of the room, seven of the eight companions following her. One would remain. That was not up for debate with the captain of the Guard.

"What do I do?" Kara asked from her place by the door, watching as her cousin followed the Amazon's out.

"Stand in the corner and watch." Bruce answered, beginning to turn off the candles around the room as he pulled a UV light from his utility belt. "You might learn something."

* * *

Well, here ya go, hope you enjoy it. For those of you waiting on LS's chapter it should be out in two to three more days while I finish proofreading and ironing out the kinks.


	4. Chapter 4

_It has been many years now..._

_Many years since I took on the mantle of responsibility..._

_Many years since I began seeing into the hundreds of paths through the future, changing and altering them with subtle machinations and patience. Guiding the human race towards the best possible outcome, maneuvering my way around the ever powerful entities mortals had once recognized as The Fates; keeping myself beneath their notice lest they deem me too troublesome for the outcome of their grand design._

_Its been many years..._

_Many years since I first took those fumbling steps into the unknown, stumbling blindly in the dark until I learned and grew..._

_And feared._

_ I fear...because the fool, is the one who claims to know everything...yet fear nothing._

_And I know of a great many...many things._

* * *

"What is all of this?"

The question was given voice by Phillipus, captain of the guard. She was a slim woman, shorter than Artemis by almost a foot. But where Artemis seemed like a hulking warrior woman that could knock down a wall with her bare fists, Phillipus seemed more limber and swift, more versatile in her array of options to bring down an opponent, and from what he could tell someone with a very sharp and curious mind.

They stood within the Javelin's loading bay. A makeshift lab had been installed along the side of the vessel, just across from the medical station. The cockpit and passenger seats were right next to them.

This was hardly to the standard that you'd find in the Cave, or even some facility at a community high-school or college, but it would do well enough for rudimentary blood tests, and first tier forensic analysis.

"Its a lab. I can process all the DNA evidence we find in the bedchamber."

"DNA?" She asked.

"Blood. Unique to everyone." He answered, flicking one of the vials to pool the crimson liquid fully at the bottom as he held it to eye-level. "We have nineteen people that had access to that room. Including yourself, and your honor guard. That leaves ten handmaidens. We test them all, then, we cross that with anything we find in the room. Hair, skin fibers, saliva. If one doesn't match up, we have our culprit.

"And what is it you have Supergirl doing?" She asked. "With the sticky pieces of parchment."

"Fingerprints." He answered absentmindedly, sitting down at the console. "Also unique. The objective is to narrow down our list of suspects. The crime scene was contaminated by so many people walking through, so that makes my job all the more difficult."

"Can you do it?" Philippus asked.

"I said it was difficult, not impossible." He answered looking over some papers before he resumed his typing.

There was silence among them for several moments, then, the clicking footsteps of Supergirl walking up the ramp greeted their ears.

"Got em." She said, smiling as she held up the various sealed up pieces of tape.

"Every last one?" He asked, eyes still scanning the test results appearing on his computer screen.

"Yea of course." Her tone was arrogant and more than a little haughty.

"Even the one's behind the vase on the marble table depicting the war of Troy?"

There was a brief silence before he stretched out his hand to take the sealed adhesive slips. Normally he would want to conduct all forensics himself if he could manage, but the crime scene was already contaminated and now speed, not preservation was their highest concern. They needed to narrow down their list of suspects quickly lest the perpetrator have time to cover their tracks.

He would have been gathering prints from that room for a good six hours, covering every surface by himself. Supergirl, sloppy and inexperienced though she might be, had super speed.

She had started ten minutes ago.

One by one he carefully pulled out the pieces of clear tape from their sealers, making sure not to touch the fingerprint on the surface at all before placing it down on the Javelin's scanner.

One by one, the distinct fingerprints appeared on screen as he ran them through the scanners, numbers appearing at their side as the scan picked up repetitions

"The advances of Patriarchs world are great indeed. The gods must still look kindly on your undeserving people." Philippus said. There was no bite in her tone, and despite her words, he did not pick up the vague inflation in her voice that would indicate she meant it as a form of taunt, or insult.

"Hardly Gods." He answered, with a scoff. "Wherever they look it's certainly not to us."

"How arrogant of a man to think he could create such wonders without the blessings of the Gods upon your heads." This time, he did hear that inflation in her voice.

"How dependent of you, to think you can't." Was his counter.

Luckily, before the conversation could continue further, Supergirl returned carrying another couple of slips. "There." She said. "I got the ones at the back of the vase and three more I'd missed before."

He nodded, and she placed the sealed adhesives next to the table.

A few minutes later all the gathered prints were cataloged.

"Good." He said almost to himself before turning his gaze on Philipus. "I assume, all the servants who had access to that room have been gathered?"

The captain of the guard nodded. "Yes, they've been gathered in the throne room."

"What did the queen have to eat today? Who prepared it?" He asked.

Philipus thought for a moment, scratching a spot just below her ear, finger slipping through the small space between her flesh and her helmet. "Our Queen had very little to eat in fact. Only some water and sliced fruit gathered from the gardens."

"Who had access to those." He asked. "Who brought it to her?"

"The gardens are not exclusive." She answered, her tone clearly indicating her disapproval of anything that would hint to the contrary. "They are for all to enjoy. One of the Palace serfs would have brought her food. I am not sure which, you would have to ask them."

Bruce resisted the rather strong urge to sigh. This place was quickly becoming a criminologist worst nightmare. He could think of a half dozen things that could have happened to that food between point A and point B that the servant would not have detected. How many "I only looked away for a second" senario's that could have taken place where a wandering hand could have thrown something into the bowl of water. Or sprinkled some powder on the fruit.

If this was happening in Gotham this case would never see the light of day in a court of law.

But what the case lacked in 'air tight' status, it made up for by the simple fact that Amazonian's didn't know how to get away with a crime in the twentieth century. They wouldn't think to use gloves. They would neither think of hiding DNA evidence, nor, more importantly, of toxicology reports that could tell him in a few hours what kind of poison was used on the comatose queen.

"Who on the island knows how to make poisons?" He asked as he began to march past her, heading towards the throne room.

"Many of us can recall how to make such things from our days before the exodus. Loathe as I am to admit such underhanded tactics, they were necessary at times against certain tribes of barbarians who would use weapons coated with such, concoctions, themselves." Phillipus answered.

This time, he couldn't contain the sigh.

Yes...a criminologist's worst nightmare.

* * *

Having flown all night, the two Hero's entered the cave the Bat-plane's entrance during the wee hours of the morning as the light from the Horizon was just beginning to turn the sky into something resembling the vaguest hints of blue.

To their utter surprise, complete disbelief and mind numbing stupefaction. Alfred was there, waiting for them when they arrived; Prim proper and without a hair out of place.

"Master Kent." He greeted with a curt nod to each. "Princess Diana."

"Alfred" Diana cried as her feet touched down on the ground. "How'd you know we were coming?"

"I am always prepared for honored guests Princess Diana." The gentleman answered with the slightest of smirks tugging at his lips, only just betraying whatever amusement he felt.

"We'll we're here." Clark said somewhat awkwardly. "Bruce said we need to get into vault four."

With a crisp about face the butler turned his back and began walking. "Follow me then please."

Entering the Elevator, Alfred soon pressed a strange looking key into one of the slots, turning it and pressing a series of numbers, an access code, into the control panel.

With a lurch, the elevator started to descend, and even with his senses, Clark could not tell how fast they were going. It took almost thirty seconds for the elevator to stop, and he could only imagine how deep in the earth they must be.

Finally, the elevator stopped, and the doors opened revealing a room filled with various, strange looking artifacts. As they entered, Clark noticed, that the doors just behind the simple, stainless steel slits of the elevator doors, was another set of doors, and these were thick, iron and lead lined behemoths that could clamp shut at a moment's notice should an intruder not be welcome

Oh yea. Batman was definitely paranoid.

Still, looking around the room, Clark and Diana found themselves waddling through some things that looked like they'd be much more at home at some weird, Disney, horror theme entry ride or something rather than this sterile room.

"Alfred...are you sure this is the right vault?" He asked blinking as he picked up a human skull.

"Quite certain Master Kent." The Butler replied. "Vault number four." As if to prove his point he gestured to the boldly large "4" that had been painted onto the wall in bright yellow. Clark flushed, embarrassed. "I believe the items in question belonged to one-"

"Felix Faust." Diana breathed from her place in the room.

"Indeed." If Alfred took any offense at being interrupted, he hid it well. "If I recall correctly, Master Bruce considered these things too dangerous to be left to fall into the wrong hands. He moved all the artifacts within Mr. Faust's living residence to this secure location as soon as he was able."

"Trust Bruce to think of everything" Clark commented, more to himself than anyone else, but it was a small room.

If Diana heard him, she didn't say, simply continued to look around the room, almost dazedly as she leafed through pages of ancient tomes and books, eying baubles and strange looking things, engraved with curvaceous runes of tongues long dead.

"Diana, are you alright?"

The question brought her back to reality and she shook her head turning to look at Clark. "Sorry...did you say something?"

"Are you alright?" He repeated, a bit slower. "You kinda dazed out there."

"Sorry." She repeated. "Its just...never mind."

Deciding to distract herself and Clark before he could continue, she turned to the majordomo by the elevator door. "Alfred, does Bruce have anything that can transport all this here in the cave?"

"There is a spare Javeline transport within the lower levels of the cave my lady. Master Bruce has kept it in case the League ever required a spare."

Diana smiled. Clark slapped his forehead.

* * *

As the dawn of the next day reached the shores of Themischera again, The Dark Knight of Gotham sat within the Javelin, scarcely aware of Kara's even breaths behind him as she slept on one of the mats.

His eyes stared fixatedly upon the queen's toxicology report, which had just emerged from the Javelin's computer with the rising sun.

As he looked at the results, he felt his ire rising, and even his tight control could not fully smother his expression as his lips curled and his face tightened.

_'You have got...to be joking.'_ He thought as he tossed the papers onto the desk with an angry sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

He was truly starting to loathe _paradise.

* * *

_

Well here ya go, hope you all enjoyed it. Also, the last chapter recieved only 2 reviews but it got nearly 1,000 hits. Now normally I don't care how many reviews I get but 2 out of nearly 1,000 is pushing it.

Anyway hope you all enjoyed it. 


	5. Chapter 5

_Life to us is as the maze of Dyonisus was to Pentheus, its mysterious corridors leading to wondrous vistas and nightmarish encounters in equal measure. Each of us must walk the maze alone, treading in the footsteps of those that came before, but also forging new routes through the labyrinth of existence. _

_On the winding paths, humans experience the full potential of love and hate, joy and woe, wrath and mercy, lust and purity. The lives of those within this world are finite, but those lives are filled with a myriad of experiences within them, that manage to enrich them, enhance them._

_But within the labyrinth, all paths are different, the roads fork, twist and turn, narrow and widen, they end and go on, changing and shifting with every choice from every person. Billions of paths, billions of diversions. And too many times do we stand upon the sharpened edge of the knife. Too many times do we come close to the abyss._

_And too many times have I seen us fall._

* * *

"What!" The Amazonian princess yelled, voicing Clark, and Kara's shock at the statement that just left the dark Knight's lips.

In response, he handed her the stack of papers he'd been holding, allowing her and the others to read over it for themselves.

"All toxicology results negative?" Kara echoed him, reading over Diana's shoulder.

"Then what the hell is going on?" Clark interjected, stepping forward and looking to the computer that still continued to run more and more analysis exams.

Bruce shook his head, typing a few more commands on the keyboard, showing new images that Clark easily recognized as red blood cells flowing through a circulatory system. But they seemed..._off_...somehow. He wasn't a biologist but red blood cells shouldn't look like they'd been chewed up by a dog.

"To be perfectly honest, I don't know. Your mother's blood is deteriorating at an unbelievable rate." He said before typing in some more commands causing the picture to change again, this time showing cells that seemed to be in even worse condition. "In a week, unless we find some kind of cure, this will be the state of her red blood cells."

Diana set the paper's aside, staring at the computer screen as though it were some enemy as she gathered her willpower to speak her next words.

"What will happen to her?"

Bruce pursed his lips. "Princess..." It was a warning.

"Tell me what will happen to her." She demanded, her voice stronger now as she glared at him.

He remained silent for a moment before looking to Clark and Kara.

"You two should get back to the watchtower. You can't do anything here, and J'hon probably needs more help than he's letting on."

Clark looked between the Dark Knight and the Amazonian princess, realizing that whatever was to be heard here, was for the princess' ears only.

He took a breath, sighing. Bruce was probably right too. They should return to the watchtower. He and Kara didn't know about forensics, and, in truth, for all their powers and abilities, they were utterly useless in an investigation like this.

He looked to Kara, jerking his head towards the exit.

Catching the hint, Supergirl put her hand on Diana's shoulder, bringing the Amazon's attention to her before she offered the woman a hug, which Diana returned distractedly as Superman placed his hand on her shoulder.

"If you need anything Diana, just call and we'll be here."

Smiling in gratitude, Diana grasped the hand on her shoulder with a squeeze. "Thank you Kal-El."

Clark nodded before turning away, descending the ramp before he and Kara began the long flight back to civilization.

As even their shadows vanished from the shores of Paradise Island, Diana leaned against the housing of the keyboard, staring up at the screen as she struggled to prepare herself for what she knew was going to be a horrifying diagnosis.

As the silence stretched on she finally broke it- "Are you going to tell me Bruce?"

The Dark Knight took a deep breath, possibly to prepare himself as much as her. "The red blood cells that carry oxygen throughout her body are deteriorating. Right now its just, loss of consciousness, pale skin coloration, decreased temperature. As it goes on, and her blood gets thinner. Her heart will start to struggle to keep pumping the adequate amounts. She'll start to bleed as the blood keeps thinning. Nose, ears, mouth, tear ducts. Loss of weight and malnutrition will begin to set in at that point as the blood also begins to struggle to give out nutrients properly. And lastly dark blotches will begin to break out across her skin when as the blood is too thin to be pumped anymore. At that point, the body will have mere hours, at the very best of estimates before it begins to experience, multiple, fatal organ failures. Most likely she'll be dead within minutes"

Diana swallowed, blinking away her tears as she pushed down the lump in her throat, the cool breeze drifting in from the Themischeran beaches doing little to sooth her. "Is that the nice version Bruce?"

Yes."

She stood then, crossing her arms before rounding on him. "You already know a lot about the process. There must be some disease in man's world like it. What is it?"

"Anemia." He answered. "But its got many treatments and is rarely fatal this day and age. What your mother has is similar but its not like any anemia I've ever heard of. Usually, the disease is caused when either the body isn't producing enough red blood cells, or its destroying them too fast for the rest of the body to keep up. Your mother is producing red blood cells at a normal rate, but they're already emerging damaged. I doubt intensely that this is any kind of disease given the fact that this island has had no contact with the outside world, and if we'd brought in any kind of contagion during our first visit here, it would have presented itself months after we left, not an entire year later."

"And the God's protect us from diseases as well." Diana said, rubbing her forehead as if to stave off a headache. "Alright then...do you have any other theories?" She asked.

Her eyes pleaded with him to have one, still trusting the fact that he would be able to get to the bottom of this before it was too late.

The next word to leave his mouth left a bad taste, in its wake. "Magic."

She jerked back, startled. Bruce's hatred of everything that was the Arcane was well known. "You were thinking of this already." She stated. "That's why you sent us to get Faust's things."

"No." He clarified. "I thought, that no one other than Faust has openly targeted this island, or your mother. Not many people get to speak to the God of the Dead like they're on a Telephone line. He couldn't have gotten that knowledge easily at all, even less with a professors' salary. Its likely he had an accomplice...someone close to the gods. Someone with knowledge of Themischera."

"You think one of my sisters may have helped him?" The very idea alone sent her reeling, horrified at the very notion. "Bruce...I assure you that-"

"I trust you Diana." He cut in. "But Faust came here and managed to freeze every amazon on this island. Even if they couldn't get to him at hand to hand they can throw spears, shoot arrows, hell rocks can be good enough if you hit him in the head. He knew exactly how to hit and when to hit. He probably knew where your patrols were and got them alone. Only Hades has motive and power to attack the Amazons as far as I know. Felix Faust was a pawn he used to try once. Who's to say he didn't have a backup plan? Someone who told Faust everything he needed to know so Faust could take the spotlight and they could keep working behind the scenes setting up something like this."

"Still Bruce...one of my sisters?"

His eyes narrowed. "Who better to sink the knife in your back?"

The question stung but only because of how much sense it really made in her mind. Who better? Her mother had been seduced by Hades once before and she was one of the wisest women she'd ever known. The lord of the underworld could easily charm another with his words. Or bewitch them with his sorcery.

Abruptly she shook her head. No. Man's world may be filled with treachery and lies but these were her sisters, women who she'd known for hundreds of years. None of them were false and each would die a hundred deaths before willingly harming one of their fellow amazons. Man's world was making me paranoid.

"No Bruce. It's not possible."

"You're welcome to think that." He said as he shut down the computer before moving to walk past her. "I'm still looking through Faust's things though."

Feeling a pang of regret, at having disregarded his opinion so quickly, she reached out to him, grasping him just above the elbow.

She noticed him stumble, as her grip stopped him a small thing, no more than an abrupt shift in weight but so thoroughly out of character for him that it sent alarm bells ringing through her mind.

Immediately, one problem brought itself up with glaring clarity to her mind.

"Have you slept?"

"There's been a lot to do Princess, the trail is cold enough as it is."

"Bruce." She yelled, worried and horrified. It was ten hours between Gotham and Themischera, that was over twenty hours alone given her and Kal-El's flights, add the one to get here in the first place, from the watchtower and the entire day he'd been awake before they'd left, this was going on almost three days without sleep. Even she'd dozed off when she and Clark had flown back on the second Javelin.

And though part of her appreciated all the more, the effort he was putting into this, another, larger part of her couldn't help but wonder."Are you out of your mind!"

"I'll be fine Princess." He said, shrugging off her arm as gently as he could make such a thing seem.

"I know you will because you're going to sleep." She said, gripping his arm a bit more firmly this time and beginning to drag him back towards the slab that made up the Javelin's makeshift bed.

"I need to work to find out who did this Princess."

That made her pause, but only for a moment before she began pulling him again. "I'll keep working. Your too tired right now to be at peak capacity."

Stubbornly he stayed in place.

"Look, just sleep for a few hours and you can get right back to work. You'll be a much bigger help to me then. Please."

He felt his shoulders slump at the plea in her voice, the fight for a few more hours of work draining out of him as he felt her hand on his shoulder. He sighed, shaking his head as he set himself down on the bed. "Call me if you get stumped princess."

She nodded, pushing him down against the surface as gently as she could. "Light's off." She said, making the interior of the Javelin go dark save for the light seeping in from the sun outside the open loading bay doors.

Bruce watched as she smirked down at him before turning away, marching out of the jet to continue the search. He'd sleep for an hour, then get back to it.

He was out just seconds after he closed his eyes.

* * *

He would awaken hours later, the sounds of early night creeping up around the Javelin and the city surrounding it.

He sat up, joints in his back stiff, his muscles sore. He really should have invested in some padding for these beds or something.

Swinging his legs over the side he stood, a small groan prying its way out of his lips as blood rushed through him again and he stretched muscles that were stiff from hours of stillness.

He looked outside, the orange hue of the setting sun making the sandy earth seem red where he could see it.

_'Damnit.' _

He marched out of the walkway, armored boots making heavy clanking sounds as they fell, after sleep grogginess made him dismiss his usual silence. Right now wasn't the time to sneak anyway.

As he walked out, he could see the other Javelin, its loading bay doors open and the interior space completely devoid of Faust's things.

He narrowed his eyes, swiveling his head to and fro, searching for someone he could ask. Civilians milled around the common proper just a couple of dozen yards away, some guards in armor were spattered around here and there. Probably more out of tradition than any real use, he determined.

Marching up to one, he watched the woman and her partner tense, their muscles seizing up as though ready to fight or flee, the one's in civilian garb went about their business quicker, offering him a wide berth.

"Where did the Princess take the artifacts?"

She looked startled for a moment, almost jumping in her armor at his harsh voice before she regained herself.

"The princess has taken the objects to the mezzanine overlooking the temple of Athena."

"Where is the temple?"

She looked even more shocked at that question before remembering herself, realizing that a man would never know the island's layout well enough to not need to ask.

She pointed clear across the Plaza. "Go through the square, head up the path to your left, Dark One when you reach the waterfall, the temple is there, pass it, and you should see the mezzanine soon after.

He brushed past her without another word, his cape trailing behind him as the crowd parted before him like schools of fish for a predator.

The beaten dirt road twisted and turned sloping uphill and down again left and right. He was starting to think he may have gone up the wrong path before the sound of rushing water greeted his ears.

He marched a little further, the hiss of cascading falls, acting as his only warning to the mist heavy air that greeted him as he rounded the corner.

Amazon's certainly didn't wish their architecture to be subtle did they?

Athena's temple sat at the end of a winding path vaguely reminding him of some massive gazebo, the waters of the river flowing around its base like a moat. Surrounding it was a cluster of trees with vines that hung all the way down to the ground. Framing the structure yet, making its white stone material stand out with all the subtlety of the Joker parading around Gotham's city hall in a pink suit. The statue of the goddess alone stood at nearly thirty feet high.

He marched past it, his ears beginning to pick up the shuffling of feet, shifting papers and voices going back and forth with questions and answers.

The road rose at a steep incline in a wide spiral, reaching for the top of the hill, where the voices, stronger now, were emerging from.

He wasn't surprised at the abrupt silence upon his arrival.

Neither was he surprised that, for all intents and purposes, the mezzanine overlooking the temple had been turned into a virtual library, with Felix's books, pieces of parchment and scrolls piled on top of desks, benches and any other place they could fit as the women worked.

Diana looked up from where she sat, dressed now in a simple white chiton. She nodded, giving only the smallest of smiles that showed her exhaustion more than he would like to admit. "Hello Bru-Batman." She caught herself, knowing that, even here he wouldn't want his name said so openly. Still, he frowned, that slip up showed how tired she really was. "Did you rest well?"

"Too long." He answered. He made a show of looking around. "Have you found anything so far?"

She stood up, nodding before gesturing for him to follow. "Yes" Leading him to a nearby table he saw much less clutter here than in the others. "These are the things that have stood out so far. Faust's spellbook, another book with notes and his research on mythology. There are some scrolls I hope you could help us translate too. But what stood out the most is in Faust's journal."

He raised an eyebrow. "I assume you've read that completely?"

"Every word." She said, nodding as she scrolled through the pages quickly. "But there was one line in particular right... here!" She gripped the book by its spine, holding it out for him. "Third paragraph, fourth line.

He took the journal in his hand. "The gates of the underworld lie beneath the sands of the Amazonian island. With Apate's help, and guidance, I will soon reach my goal. The gates of the Dread Lord shall be opened, and ultimate knowledge shall be mine. It is ironic really, though her name is deception, she has been nothing but truthful in her dealings with me-"

He set the book down, his face grim.

She nodded.

"Apate was-"

"One of the spirits released from Pandora's box when it was opened" He interrupted, already knowing the tale. "She's the spirit of deception."

Diana smiled. "Know much Greek mythology do you?"

"You pick up a few things." He offered with a small smile of his own before his eyes returned to all the stuff laid out over the table.

His silence stretched on for a long while, and she allowed him the time to think before she decided to ask her next question.

"Do you think, the actual spirit of Apate visited Felix Faust? Or was it some Alias."

"Too early to say. You know more about the actions your gods are up to these days better than me, what are the spirits from Pandora's box been doing lately?"

"No one has seen a physical manifestation of any of those spirits since they were first unleashed, they are more immaterial forces of nature than semi-corporeal specters that interact openly with our world. It just wouldn't make sense that Apate would tie herself down to an alliance with Hades and appear before a mortal just to act as a..." She paused. "...courier."

"So an alias." He finished, looking at her from the corner of his eye. "You do realize, seeing as how this implies that Hades has a female agent walking among the living, it makes it all the more likely that,-"

"I know, Batman, I know." She cut him off, sighing with weary sadness at the unspoken words.

Empathy, was the emotion that graced his face for half a second before he schooled his features.

He allowed his voice to loose some its edge however.

"Go on princess. See your mother and get some sleep, I'll keep going up here for now."

"I don't think I'll be able to sleep."

"Then go see your mother..." His pause was thick, heavy with measured words. "Its...the right thing, right now."

His tone was so strange, she caught herself staring at his back, a question at the tip of her tongue before she stopped herself. Now wasn't the time to pry, not here in front of so many. She'd ask later, and hopefully he'd answer.

She pressed a hand to his shoulder instead, carefully squeezing it in a silent thanks.

She turned, walking towards the Schola Progenium's head-mistress. "Leukothea."

"Yes my lady?" She answered, looking up from another of Felix Faust's books, a mild look of irritation on her face due to the book itself. The scholars of the Librarium were struggling in their translations and interpretations of the parts in Faust's books written in English. Taking hours in accomplishing the equivalent of what would have normally taken mere minutes.

The sisters of the island could _speak_ English well enough, learning it from Aresia when she'd washed upon their shores. It had practically become a craze for the women of the island. Learning an entirely new language, receiving fresh knowledge beyond these shores. Many had pursued the strange words and sounds eagerly, their minds thirsting for stimulation and receiving it gratefully.

In less than a week virtually all on the island could carry a full conversation.

Reading English however was proving to be a much more annoying task. They'd gleaned their knowledge of English from the mouth of a young girl, barely educated after all.

Felix Faust was a university professor, with two doctorate degrees patched into his resume, one in linguistics.

His grammar was impeccable, the words that he used required them to stop and ask the princess for assistance or go to the...dictionary? the princess had brought with her. All of this, being both time consuming and incredibly annoying.

Mercifully, almost half of the material was in greek, so they were able to cover more ground there, leaving the more well practiced, and the princess herself in reading through what was in English.

Still, it was not a task she was particularly relishing.

"I'm leaving. Batman will be taking my place." Diana said and she did not miss Leukothea's wary glance. She did however, not comment on it. "If he has any questions, please answer them, help him as best you can and if you need help, do not hesitate to ask him in turn."

The Scholar very nearly bristled at the insinuation that _she_ would need help from a _man. _She didn't let it show in her features or her words however. "As you command, my lady."

Diana nodded, and with a backwards glance towards the figure clad in black, who's eyes still scanned the book in his hands, she turned and marched down the steps leaving the mezzanine floor, leaving them with the male.

It was not long before acolyte Lintea, who'd only recently joined the more calm path of the scholar, from the path of the athlete spoke up in a hissing whisper, speaking across to the more senior acolyte Venirva, in greek.

"_What is the princess thinking leaving us here alone with this one?"_

"_Watch what you say. She is our princess."_

"_She is trusting in a man that dresses like some ghoul with the safety of our queen. And she leaves us here with no guard and no warriors to defend us in case this man should try something."_

Leukothea closed her eyes, her lips curling. They were wasting time. And while she harbored no love for the man in their midst neither did she want to simply bark out for them to be quiet. Even a fool would be able to pick up that they were speaking ill of him if she were to do that. And this one did not seem like a fool despite his gender. As it was, he could still think they were merely questioning one another over something they'd discovered in the tomes.

It was at that moment that the last acolyte with them Shara, joined the conversation.

"_This one was declared a Champion of Themyschera, surely he is not as savage or barbaric as the men of the old tales."_

Lintea scoffed. _"All men are savage, because they praise savagery. This one probably read tales of Achilles as a boy. Wished to be him. And I do not see how anyone that hides behind a mask can be declared Champion of anything. Let alone Themyschera."_

The other girls looked as though they were ready to respond when another voice spoke up.

"_Get back to work."_

Leukothea jumped in her seat, the voice was rough, gruttural, with only the barest hint of an accent. And for a split second she wondered which of the lay sisters had caught ill before she realized that was not a voice that could ever belong to a sister.

The three Acolytes shot up in their seats, their eyes going wide with fear as they found themselves staring into the white lenses of a cowl that glared at them.

Soon enough, those eyes lowered back down and returned to their duties.

Leukothea grimaced, watching as the man returned his attention to the book in his hands.

So much for impressions of hospitality.

* * *

Well here ya go, this chapter was more of a bridge point really. I haven't decided yet if the next chapter will follow the same kind of buildup as this one or if I'll move the plot along a bit more, regardless I hope you enjoyed it.


	6. Chapter 6

_The tangled skein of the Fates' circle around us now. They tighten their noose._

_Doorways are closing that can never again be opened by the hand of mortal or god._

_A hundred more open in response, and a infinite more remain unseen, even to my gaze._

_The time draws near. The Fates spin their silk. Uncountable strings slide and curl, are cut and sown, weaved and mended by the sisters who make even the gods bow to their whims._

_The nexus of futures curls and straightens, shakes and is still. _

_The pathways merge. _

_The many become one and the one splinters and divides, becoming many again._

_The time of fate draws near..._

_And I must be there to greet it._

* * *

He'd been here for eight days already.

Dick, Tim and Barbara were handling Gotham. They, and/or Kent would bring in more supplies as they were needed. A laptop, reference information found by scrolling through Faust's books, another Batsuit.

He'd already been given a room for himself at the Palace with a private bathing chamber even.

It was both for his comfort and to keep him as isolated from the general populace as possible. The princess did not want to alarm her people any more than they already had been.

He didn't mind, he preferred it as private as possible, in fact.

The sun was rising over the eastern mountains now, illuminating the palace in sunlight as he finished putting on his suit and cape, ready for another day after barely three hours of sleep.

He marched to the doorway, intent on continuing another day of research and investigation when, as he opened his door, he found himself staring into a pair of startled blue eyes; a loose fist held up, ready to knock on the wood.

"Batman!"

"Princess." He greeted calmly with a nod before gently brushing past her, conveying the silent message of, _'walk and talk'_ as he said. "Anything I can do for you?"

"I..." She began, before stopping, hesitating.

Mercifully he stopped walking, allowing her his full, undivided attention. He could tell when something was difficult for her to voice.

"Look...Bruce I-" She caught her own slip, looking to his gaze however she did not find what would have been signature anger at the slight, so she continued on. " I just want you to know that no matter what happens-"

"She wont die princess..." He reassured, more firmly than he'd meant to. The queen's condition grew worse by the day. Her heart rate was slowing to dangerous levels, and he was sure that only the innate magic that had kept her and other amazons alive for millenia, gave her the strength to still be alive now. It was getting to the point where he was already drawing up plans on how to bring doctor Hazley here, or even J'hon if he could, along with some medical equipment that could operate without the use of electricity.

Their time was short. At his estimates, maybe another day, three and that was _pushing _it by _a lot_.

But he would not fail Diana.

She'd asked for his help saving her mother.

He'd move heaven and earth if he had to to make it happen so that she wouldn't have to suffer the pain of loosing a parent.

She often showed up late at the mezzanine, after a long day of keeping back councilmen and amazon sisters. Of fending them off of their persecution of him being on the island, settling disputes between temples, determining the tributes that would be given to each, listening to her council-members bicker and argue over the course their island should take. It seemed to him that they were already grooming her to be her mother's heir. As though Diana was not still infact, an exiled princess, and their Queen was already dead.

They probably thought she was. None of the Amazons had much faith in his abilities.

She nodded at his words. "I know you're trying Bruce...but...if anything should happen, I want you to know that...I appreciate what you've tried to do here...for me. Leaving Gotham behind...staying here...dealing with...everything. I just want to say Thank you...Bruce."

He wasn't used to open gratitude. Normally, he was in and out before the civilians knew what was even going on. He didn't do what he did for praise, or recognition. So being confronted with this left him at something of a loss.

He nodded for lack of a better thing to do, and he was proud of himself for being only mildly surprised when she leaned forward and hugged him tightly.

He went stiff, his heart skipping what must have been several beats before he allowed himself to relax again while the princess, in contrast, tightened up, her muscles going rigid as her fingers curled and balled parts of his cape in tight fists.

He could feel her shoulders shake as she struggled to contain rampant emotions that had been all but suppressed throughout the last week.

Hesitantly, he reached up, placing one hand at her back, hugging her back as much as he would allow.

He rubbed her back soothingly, as he remembered Alfred would do when he was younger.

They stayed this way for several moments before the princess finally relaxed. Pulling back with nothing but a small glimmer around the very edge of her eye to show how close she'd come to actually crying. Selfishly, he was somewhat grateful she hadn't. Crying women made him, and he suspected a good 80 percent of the male population, highly uncomfortable.

He stood by her, allowing her the time she needed as she cleared her throat and decided to change the subject. "Have you found anything else on who _Apate _could be?"

He shook his head. "No. Faust hardly mentions her ever again in his journal and his research books are giving us little to go on. There are some rare books that Dick is trying to cross reference to see where he could have obtained them but that will take some time."

He felt his own mind snarl with his frustration. He was close, so damn close it wasn't even funny. There was some clue here, some piece of evidence that was just sitting right under his damn nose.

Diana sighed. "I see...well...I must return to my duties. The members of the council are already waiting for me."

He nodded, and as she turned to walk down the hallway he caught a whiff of her scent. Floral.

"New perfume princess?"

She smiled over her shoulder. "Not really, just something Antheia made with the flowers she was named after."

He nodded, a small smirk at his lips before he turned down the opposite direction.

When he marched up to the mezzanine, Leukothea was already there. They were all keeping strange hours. He'd left to get some rest as Leukothea and a fresh group of acolytes and scholars had been arriving to take up the slack.

She looked to him from the corner of her eye before turning back to the book in her hand. "Should you not be resting?"

"I've rested enough." He answered, stepping past her for another book. If they kept this pace up, they would be finished with the entire collection by late evening. "Anything new?"

"No." The headmistress shook her head with a frustrated growl. "This asp of a man gives very little indication as to who might have been helping him. He simply continues calling her, 'The woman' or just 'Apate'."

"Nothing? No descriptions? No mention of something that irritates him about her?"

"No. This one was only concerned with his quest for knowledge everything else could fall by the way-is something wrong?"

He was standing still, his eyes wide beneath the lenses of his cowl as the answer to all the riddles rushed through his mind, slamming into him with the subtlety of a brick wall.

He turned, ignoring the startled cries of the scholar and her acolytes as he rushed past them.

* * *

Soaring over the dizzying heights of Metropolis city's many skyscrapers next to her cousin, Supergirl found her mind wandering as Clark led her through the early morning patrol.

"Something on your mind?"

She looked to Clark, his typical, patient smile quirking his lips as he raised a single eyebrow in her direction. If he was at all perturbed by the fact that he'd deduced she wasn't listening, he hid it well.

She shrugged. "Sorry Kal. What gave me away?"

"The fact that we passed by Cannabis street about seven minutes ago and you haven't said a word."

She cursed under her breath, Cannabis street was their halfway point, they'd turn North from there, go up three blocks then head back west. It was marked by a huge fountain rotunda in the middle of the street.

She must have been really out of it to not notice.

Clark smiled a little more before he began to turn and she followed, changing their trajectory fully before conversation resumed.

"So, penny for your thoughts." He finally said.

She smiled. Kal-El's patience was limitless.

"I was just thinking about, Mr. and Mrs. Kent. I-"

"Kara." He interrupted, a mild reproach in his tone. "I've told you, you're family."

She sighed, torn between being appreciative of the Kent's and their son's warm and accepting demeanor, and utterly baffled by it.

She was practically responsible for making them homeless.

True, it was for a relatively short period of about two and a half days not counting thanksgiving, the house was already rebuilt with Kal-El and her efforts and needed only to be refurbished, but still. It was mind boggling how forgiving the Kent's were being after she'd all but demolished everything they'd ever owned.

Still, Clark wouldn't budge on this and he'd simply stare at her with a stern face and insist that she shouldn't feel guilty for what happened until she accepted it. And Clark, as she'd mentioned earlier, had limitless patience...he could stare for a very very long time.

Best to move on.

"Thanks cousin, but then that got me thinking on Diana."

At the mention of the Amazon's name, Clark's expression went solemn and grim, worry for his friend's situation evident on his face.

"I'm just frustrated ya know?" She continued, unwittingly giving voice to his feelings on the subject. "I mean, I haven't known her for very long but she seems nice. What she's going through...it just...seems wrong doesn't it?"

He nodded. Diana was one of the kindest people he'd ever met, one of the most resilient too. But loosing a parent...She definitely didn't deserve that.

"I just wish there was something more I could do."

"And so you shall." Came a voice which halted the two Kryptonian's mid-flight.

"Wha-"

That's as far as Clark got before he and Kara were consumed by light, vanishing from the Metropolis skyline.

* * *

He rushed through the Palace hallways, pushing aside startled handmaidens and royal guard.

"Out of the way." He yelled to those who had time to actually move, to others encountered rounding corners or exiting doorways he simply shoved aside. He had little doubt that he was making a worse impression of men on these women than what already existed but he didn't care.

Let them think what they wanted of him after he saved their queen.

He reached the Palace's royal chambers, rushing up the steps, swallowing them three at a time with every stride.

He reached the room, the doors were partially open and he could see the hint of an Honorguard's profile through the crack.

He didn't let it stop him.

He busted the wooden, paper thin door completely off its hinges when his shoulder slammed into it, wooden shrapnel flying through the room. The handmaidens washing the queen's body jumped, all but one.

He threw his Batarang, fast as he could.

The metal blade sank into flesh, blood seeping down through an open wound as a scream rang through the Palace halls.

The honor-guard reacted an instant later, four placing themselves between him and the queen, swords and shields at the ready, four more rushed in, weapons raised before they surrounded him the tip of their swords at his neck. One more false move and they would cut him down.

In truth, the only reason they hadn't was because he hadn't targeted the queen.

He stood still, eyes narrowed as he glared at the woman who's hand was now leaving bloody stains on the stone floor.

"Step away, Antheia."

The dark haired woman glared at him through the bangs of her hair.

"Have you gone mad!" She screeched, clutching her wrist as she backed away to the far wall.

"No. It just took me a while to figure it out."

"Figure what out?" She hissed.

He continued, knowing the Honor-guard were paying very close attention to the words being said, even though their weapons were still trained on him. The other handmaidens plastered themselves against the far wall, as far away from both him, and Antheia as possible.

"Felix Faust kept calling his co-conspirator _Apate_. Then one time he said, _Though her name means deception- _I thought he was just talking about the alias Apate. Even though Apate _is_ deception, that doesn't necessarily mean her name means that as well. But he knew your name didn't he?"

"You must be-"

"It hit me after the Princess mentioned the scented oils you made. With flowers you're named after. One translation of Antheia means flower. But that's a mistranslation, It means, swamp flower. Plants found in bogs, marshes and swamps. Used for poisons. Your very name is deceptive."

She scoffed, though her eyes darted to one of the Honor-guard's who's helmet had turned ever so slightly in her direction.

"You've gone daft! I'm the one who sent out the call for the Justice league's aid."

"Yes...you did. But that doesn't mean you didn't do it."

When he stepped forward, into the room, the Honor guard didn't impede him.

"You found the body. You called us. Threw off suspicion from yourself. Yet you had access, to the kitchens, the gardens, the queen herself. You had time, ample time to do whatever you did here. No one speaks to the queen more than her handmaidens.

He sounded convincing to the Amazonian guard. But that didn't matter to him. What he wanted was proof, rock solid evidence that he could use. All of this was circumstantial at the very best. But if it was enough to convince the guard, then that would get him an interrogation and that would get him the evidence he wanted.

He would make damn sure of it.

So far she was showing signs, red flags that were creeping up as the seconds ticked by but this could be attributed to nervousness at the entire honor-guard now turning their gazes onto her, gleaming swords and all.

The proof that he wanted, he would get within the next few seconds.

Antheia staggered back, eyes darting this way and that way around the room, looking to some of her fellow Amazons for help as he drew closer, his body eclipsing the light from the main hallway as he loomed over her, the cold glare of his cowl sending shivers down her spine as he drew closer.

She closed her eyes.

The thing that opened them again was not Antheia.

* * *

Diana sighed, this argument had been going back and forth for the better part of an hour.

"I understand what you are saying Philipus. But the Path's have served us for many long ages. You are asking me to commission, a change to our society that we have not seen for over two millenia.

"The Queen's condition is due to the direct fact that we, as Warriors have become complacent, majesty. The women who join the path of the Warrior do so now only as recreation, a means to keep their minds and bodies fit. And few join the path at all. If more of us were versed under the tenets of discipline then more would be fit to protect the queen. More would have had their eyes and ears open to catch something like this before it could fully strike and cause as much damage as it has."

The Captain of the guard paused, catching her breath. "Please, I ask only that you make it Mandatory for every Amazon to enter training in the path of the warrior once every decade. If we do then the queen will have more guards within and without than she could ever hope for. Ensuring her safety."

Diana shook her head, ready to continue when a crash brought both women up short as the sound of breaking wood and shattering glass reached their ears.

"What in Hera's name-"

That's as far as Phillipus got before the side door to the throne room burst open, a half dozen screaming handmaidens rushing through followed shortly by two honor-guards carrying the body of their queen between the two of them.

Without wasting a moment, Diana flew to them, Phillipus right at her heels. "What is the meaning of this!"

"My lady there's-"

The cry was pitched, like the screech of a harpy long and howling over their bodies like a cold breeze and Diana found her ears to be ringing as she turned her sight up the stairs to where Antheia stood.

Though the creature that stood before her could hardly be called Antheia at all.

Her hair was waving in a non-existent wind, black liquid seeped through the tear-ducts of her bloodshot eyes, trailing down her face as her open mouth bled an angry red. Blue veins could be seen beneath the surface of her skin as the muscles of her arm bunched and coiled, ready to spring into action.

And spring she did.

Diana didn't think, she didn't need to, she just reacted.

Knowing this thing was after her mother, that it was what had harmed her...

That she was a fellow Amazon never crossed her mind.

That the woman rushing towards them would never survive the blow didn't either.

All the pent up emotions and frustrations, the anger, grief and confusion.

In a single instant...

She just reacted.

With a spin kick delivered faster than Phillipus could draw her sword, Diana felt bones crush beneath the heel of her foot, giving in to irresistible force that would turn inner organs to paste, rupture blood vessels and kill the victim in the span of time it took for the messages of pain to reach the victim's brain.

Antheia's broken body sailed across the empty palisade, smashing against the side of a pillar before falling to the floor, unmoving.

Phillipus walked forward, as the two Honor-guard moved on, carrying the queen to a safer location. Her sword was held at the ready, though both she and Diana were fairly certain that, what was once Antheia would not be standing back up again.

She made her way closer, and with a strike of her greved shin against the creature's side, Phillipus was certain of its death.

The sound of booted feet rushing down the hallway alerted the both of them before Batman rushed into the room, a wound on his shoulder bled trails of crimson down his side. He scanned the room, eyes swiveling this way and that way before they landed on Antheia's corpse, and Phillipus who stood beside it.

"Get back!" He yelled.

Too late.

The creature that had once been Antheia leaped to its feet, a wide, cackling laugh at its lips as it grasped Phillipus' sword arm with strength born of no normal means.

She struck at its face with her fist, and it simply shrugged off the blow as though it were the weak slapping of a child's fist against armor as she reached down, and grabbed Phillipus' sword.

Diana, shocked out of her stupor, rushed forward.

It yanked the sword out of the Royal guard's grasp, heaving it upwards in preparation to drive its blade through the Amazon's skull.

A bladed batarang neatly severing the tendons in her wrist brought that intent up short.

A meta strengthened fist to her face cemented the notion as it plowed her through the palace wall.

Phillipus steadied herself on her feet before she reached down, quickly grabbing her sword as Diana stepped forward cautiously watching the spot where Antheia had fallen.

Quickly, the princess spared a glance over her shoulder, focusing on Batman's mauled arm, it looked like he'd been attacked by a big cat or something.

"Are you alright!" She called back, concern for his safety overriding her concern for the downed enemy. He was bleeding a lot.

"I'll be fine, stay focused. She can heal almost instantly from what I can tell." He barked, one hand gripping three batarangs between his fingers, the other cradled against his mid-section trying to keep it from moving too much.

She nodded, and again both she and Phillipus crept forward, the dust from the shattered wall beginning to settle.

Diana ducked, her reflexes reacting before her conscious mind ever realized a brick had been hurdled towards her face. Antheia coming up right behind it, faster than she should have ever hoped to be on her own.

Diana lifted her arm, allowing her forearm to bear the brunt of a kick before her hand wrapped around the woman's ankle, twisting it with enough force to have practically twisted it completely off.

Antheia barely looked like she noticed, snarling as she savagely pulled her foot back. Diana was so surprised to feel the joint coming out of place that she let the appendage slip through her grasp, her fingers recoiling.

Her silver bracelets came up, blocking strike after strike from vicious claws that seemed to strike her limbs harder and faster than most modern bullets. The armor forged by Hephaestus held strong against blows that would have torn flesh from bone.

Again, bladed Battarangs struck their mark, right over the Amazon's right shoulder, sending her reeling her features twisted into an ugly snarl before morphing into a more hideous grin as she continued to attack the Princess.

Phillipus attacked then, from behind, and with a cry the tip of her blade emerged from Antheia's stomach.

The former handmaiden jerked, her body giving a single twitch before her limbs went slack and she fell forward, the blade still in her back.

Diana and Phillipus backed away, eying the body as though it were going to spring up and fight again. Which was extremely likely given the circumstances.

But after a moment the body continued to lay still, and as batman approached, one hand clutching at a bleeding shoulder, they noticed the dark blue veins that had so recently stood out from beneath the handmaiden's fair skin were subsiding, the black liquid that had leaked from her eyes receding back into her body.

Then, with a strangled gasp, Antheia's back arched, her mouth opening, and the three jumped back, startled but ready for another attack.

But no attack would be coming. From Antheia's open mouth black smog poured out, thick and putrid in odor, it coiled in the air, a purple hue in its wispy tendrils where the light struck it before it swirled into a spiral, steadily becoming smaller and smaller before vanishing altogether.

They could hear just the faintest echo of laughter slithering through the wind.

"That..." Bruce began. "Doesn't seem good."

Light, blinding in its briliance, washed through the room, making the three wince as they each moved to shield their eyes.

"I can assure you mortal, it is not." The voice boomed around their ears, coming from everywhere at once.

As quickly as the light had appeared it vanished, and Bruce, Diana and Phillipus found themselves staring at a man in a golden helmet, flanked by none other than Superman and Supergirl.

"Who are you!" It was Phillipus who asked.

For a long while, the figure didn't answer simply stood there. Then his voice slithered into their minds, coiling around their perceptions as it made itself known.

"I go by many names Child of the Amazon. Yet mortals would know me as, Doctor Fate."


	7. Chapter 7

She woke with a start, to the sound of her phone blaring in her ear, its shrill ring carrying her to full consciousness with a momentary daze, wondering for a second where she was and how she got here before recognizing the décor of her own apartment.

Her head lolled lazily to the side glaring at her phone, which rang happily in the corner, its merry little blue light stinging her retinas and making her want to throw it while it was still ringing out the window.

But she couldn't do that. It was an expensive phone...Reaching forward and picking it up she answered it without even bothering to look at the caller ID.

"The world better be ending or you're a dead within the week" The words were dragged out of an all too dry throat.

The voice that answered her, made her wake up just a little bit more. It also raised her irritation.

"I need information."

"Bruce. Do you have any idea what time it-"

"Four-twenty-six AM. I need everything you know on Doctor Fate."

Now that made her sit up straight. "Why in the hell would you need that?"

"What do you know Zatanna?"

She scowled, hating how he ignored her question, but relenting nevertheless. Her answer would come sooner if she just went with the flow of the conversation rather than try to pry the answer out of him. She'd need a stick of dinamite, a drill, and a crowbar for good measure and right now, she just didn't have the energy.

"He's powerful, and old-school, real old-school, when my grandfather's grandfather was young he was probably considered old-school."

"And that matters how?"

"Magic users only get stronger with experience and practice. Doctor Fate has been around for at least fifteen centuries. If the texts are anything to go by, this guy is about as close to godhood as a human can get. If he's the real deal that is."

"Could you fight him if it came down to it?"

She almost choked on her own spit, she sputtered out her answer in a tone that belied just how absurd she thought the notion to be. "What? Fight Fate? Are you crazy? I'd sooner challenge Bane to an arm wrestling contest using my off hand!"

She could almost feel his scowl after that.

"Bruce..." She ventured, now fully awake as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. "What's going on? Talk to me."

"There's someone here calling himself Doctor Fate. He didn't say much before he went to help Queen Hipolatta, only that we should be ready for when he returns. I need more information."

She wasn't sure who Hipolatta was but she didn't really care, the rest of this was much more important in her mind. "Bruce. If this guy is really Fate and not some con-artist with a few illusions and parlor tricks, don't even think about going up against him. Fate doesn't bend the laws of reality, he breaks them. According to scriptures, he can tear open parallel realities, see the future, mind control people, create his own pocket dimensions that lead to nothingness. These are all third tier spells. If he wants to, he can level entire continents."

"How soon can you get to the Manor? I need you here to tell us if he's real or not."

"Just tell me what he's wearing and what he's done so far?"

"He's wearing blue, gold boots, gloves, cape and helmet."

"What kind of helmet! Is it the helm of Anubis?"

"Looks Greek in design, not Egyptian. Macedonian hoplight in origin. Five hundred BC most likely. Late bronze age. Sound about right?"

Zatana's throat had gone very dry even as she began to scurry around her apartment gathering her things. "Yes...that sounds incredibly accurate to the texts I've read."

"How many other people would have access to books like yours?"

"Book, actually, and none. The book is completely unique. Unknown origin, _"The Librarius Deamoniacum" _has been in my family for generations."

"The library of Daemonology?"

"Yes. A warlock took many notes on the art of fighting demons and spirits from other worlds or dimensions. A lot of his reference material was allegedly drawn from Doctor Fate himself"

He stayed quiet this time, thinking, and as she put on her pants she adjusted the phone over her ear, speaking with renewed severity. "Bruce. Don't you dare even think about taking this guy on. I don't care if you have a nuke to drop on his head. Nothing you can do will even faze him. Do you understand me?"

"How soon can you get to the Manor?"

"Do you understand me Bruce." She stressed the point, making it clear she wouldn't budge from it until he answered her. Bruce could bludgeon, but he was nothing if not a man of his word. She would bludgeon ten times harder to make him give it, she certainly had enough energy for _this_ if nothing else.

There was silence for a while, and after a few seconds she was going to check to see if he'd hung up when his voice finally reached her.

"Understood. How soon can you get to the Manor?"

She looked at the clock. "Give me about seven hours. I don't want to wake Alfred. And don't you go calling him either."

He grunted, and the line went dead.

* * *

Diana, Clark and Kara stood in the room beneath the shadow of candlelight, the five remaining, uninjured Honor-Guard standing across from them. Laying as cold and unmoving as the day she'd been discovered was Queen Hipolatta, with Doctor Fate, standing at her head, long fingers poised along her skull, evenly separated as he canted a litany under his breath.

There was a pulse, a faint shimmer in the air that expanded outwards like a bubble, breaking over their bodies as Fate's eyes glowed white from the slit eye-holes of his helmet mask.

Almost immediately, the queen's condition changed, her sickly white pallor had regained some of its color, the garish sight of the blue veins beneath her paper thin skin receding back, her breathing emerging stronger now than it had in days.

"There." Fate's ghostly voice slithered through their minds. "I have pushed back the demon coursing through her veins for a time with my magic, granting her body a reprieve. However, I cannot as of yet fully cure her of her illness."

"What do you require." Diana said immediately, her worry for her mother breaking through the facade of apathy. "Whatever it is I will see it found."

"It is not a matter of lack of power or resources, I could banish the abomination into the pits of the void now." He answered. "Purging the demon will alert our enemies to my presence however, which must not happen yet."

Diana looked ready to argue when Clark's calming hand over her shoulder cut her off.

"Perhaps you should explain." He asked, voice calm as he squeezed Diana's shoulder in what was meant to be a comforting gesture, as well as a restraining one. "The queen needs help, and we'll gladly help defend you from anyone that would come after you if you help her now."

"Even your might is a pale thing in comparison to the enemy I speak of son of Krypton." Fate said with a shake of his head. The betrayer, known to you mortals as Hades seeks to return to this plane of existence." He answered bluntly.

The honor guard stiffened, their spines going rigid at the words even as their princess spoke.

"Hades is imprisoned with the power of all the gods of Olympus, the very doorway to his realm lies beneath our temple's sacred grounds, at the heart of the necropolis. We would know if anyone were to try anything." She answered, a slight impatience in her tone.

Fate shook his head however, scoffing. "For all your age and blessed wisdom from the one you know as Athena, you are still but a child Amazon. It is no simple _doorway_ or _word of command_ that holds back the great betrayer from returning to this world. He is guarded in a thousand different ways, and in a thousand more can he slip through."

"He came here before and we stopped him. If he comes back we'll stop him again." That was Clark this time. And Kara smiled at his side, confident in both her, and her cousin's power.

Again Fate shook his head, mentally sneering at the brashness he could detect here. These were children who'd barely known failure in their lives. Seeing virtue in their own idiocy was a prerogative of theirs that he did not have time to indulge or humor at the moment.

"That is foolish talk. Hades' previous incursion back into this world was one he never expected to succeed in. His only purpose was to blind the Warlocks and Farseers of the universe. Decades from now will the witch-sight be fogged by the eldritch forces he unleashed upon the world for the scant few minutes he held that gate open.

Though Diana and Clark could begin to understand what he was getting at, Kara needed a simpler explanation.

"Huh?"

Fate's glare, she would recall later, was almost hate filled.

"The chosen of Apollo can gaze through the skein of fate and the passages of time. But only if the view is clear; Hades, when he escaped for a time, he..." The sorcerer paused, as if searching for a sufficiently simple description for them to grasp. "- threw up dust, or fog, into the air. Even the greatest of farseers can only see a scant few days through the webways. Hades escaped his prison, knowing full well he'd be thrown back inside either by mortal hands or the hands of gods in preparation for this, a second coming. A way for him to escape and catch his fellow Gods unaware."

"Why target Hipolata then?"

Fate shook his head. "Revenge on the Amazonian; they chose to carry the duty to be his guards. Hades does not suffer those who cross him. He must have deduced that the Princess would be exiled, and that then, by targeting Hipolata the Amazons would be weakened, or divided when he eventually enacted his gambit for escape." He paused, looking to Diana. "The woman, the one you fought; was under the influence of possession. Most likely she was not even aware of it. The moment he would have left her body she may have recalled whatever actions he had her commit All the secrets, and plans it shared with the deluded Faust, years ago, or even conversations with Hades' himself. He couldn't allow such information to fall into your hands. So he held her as his thrall long enough to ensure the injuries you inflicted would cause her death."

"Are you saying that-"

"You fell right into their hands." He said with little preamble or pity. Either not noticing or not caring about the slowly creeping look of horror that was slithering into Diana's eyes.

"So when is he planning to escape." Clark asked, deciding to change the subject. "You must know, or you wouldn't have brought us here, or come to Themischera.

"I do." Fate answered with a nod.

"And how do you know?" Supergirl said crossing her arms as her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "I mean, you just basically said none of you witch-seers or whatever, can see all that good into the future anymore so what's the deal with you? You special or something?"

"For the last several centuries I have been the only Farseer on this world. Other warlocks and witch seer's are amateurs at the very best, fools at parties giving out parlor tricks at worst. It is on this world that Hades will enact his gambit. Either by proximity to this event or to the gods themselves I have seen our future and where it will be decided. Make no mistake, at this point, Hades will tear open the veil between the mortal realm and the underworld allowing for his return. But when he emerges he will be weak. That will be our only opportunity to strike. The longer he holds ground here on this world the stronger he will become and no Amazon, or Kryptonian is a match for a God of Olympus.

"So how will we stop him? Push him back through the hole again?" Diana asked, her calm returning now that the heat of the moment had passed and the full severity of what they faced was processed. She pushed the revelation of Antheia out of her mind, far into the back of her thoughts as she focussed on duty, lest the bile rise in her throat at the thought of what she'd done.

"No. That would not work, he will simply return through another tear, and another and another until our strength is spent. And even with all your gifts, none of you would even be able to make the lord of the Underworld stumble. No. The only way to push Hades back to the underworld and mend the tear he will create is with a ritual I will conduct."

"So this is a guard till your done, kinda job?" Kara asked taking a seat on one of the room's chairs.

"Hades would never allow me the luxury of going about my ritual unimpeded, no. We need to summon a power that Hades himself will not ignore. It will all but blind him to me while I cast my spell."

Fate paused, watching as Diana's eyes narrowed. No doubt she held an inkling as to what he was going to propose.

She would not be happy.

I looked straight at her.

"We must call forth, the Harbinger."

Her response was immediate, furious, unyielding. And utterly unacceptable.

"Absolutely not!"

"It must be done. Weakened as Hades might be he is far too powerful for any mortal being to have a hope of lasting against him now that he will be serious in his attempt at escape. Summon the Harbinger and even Hades will be halted where he stands."

"It is out of the question and that is final."

"Then we are already dead and Hades has won."

"Whoa, slow down, both of you-" Clark intervened, stepping forward to stand slightly between the two of them. "What is this Harbinger thing?"

Fate stayed silent, and so, the man of steel turned to the Amazon princess. "Diana?"

The Princess glared at the sorcerer for a moment before looking to Clark. "Before the Exodus, my people made war frequently with other Greek kingdoms to defend our lands from their invading armies. Ares, the God of War, saw in us, fierce warriors whom were peerless on the battlefield. And whom would be loyal servants to him should he offer aid to us in our darkest hour. It was such, that he whispered promises of glory and power to neighboring Kingdoms, telling them tales of treasure and women that could be reaped by them should they sack Amazonia."

She paused to catch her breath. "We may be powerful but we are few, beset on all sides by various armies seeking to take our home we were pushed back until the coalition stood at the very gates of our ancestral homes. It was then Ares came to us." She paused, and he gave her a moment as she rubbed the bridge of her nose, as if the very memory of what the God had done was infuriating enough.

"He descended from mount Olympus itself, promising us victory over our enemies in exchange for our worship of him over all other Gods save Zeus himself. In our desperation my people agreed and Ares granted us The Armor . Three pieces. A helmet, a sword and a gauntlet. A battle Sister wearing all three would become the Harbinger, a fiery incarnation of the Wargod's full power wielded by a single mortal."

Clark nodded while Kara gave a low whistle, impressed. "I take it that's not the whole story though?" The elder kryptonian added.

Diana gave a sigh through her nostrils. "No. We were indeed victorious over those that were attacking us. But Ares was insatiable. With the Harbinger at the head of our armies we attacked, and eventually conquered all of those whom had attacked us. My people were more than willing to stop there but Ares demanded one final target. Athens. When he did, Athena, who had been watching her brother closely finally intervened. She approached our Queen, and told her of Ares deceit and the hand he'd had in the previous attacks made onto our home. My grandmother was furious or so I'm told, the queen and her fellow Amazons tore down the shrines dedicated to the worship of Ares, ordering that all Amazon warriors return to their homeland at once with the Harbinger.

But Ares never once gave up that which he'd taken for himself. The Sister whom wore the armor died within the hour, and Ares declared that any Amazon who'd henceforth wish to wear it, would die just as she had." Her anger was mounting with every word and her wrathful eyes turned towards Fate with more and more anger at the thought that he wanted to bring this thing back. "Immediately, after that, the kingdoms of Sparta and Thessaly, marched against us, no doubt spurred onto the Warpath by the scorned god, himself."

"Talk about being caught between a Rock and a hard place." Kara muttered under her breath.

Diana continued, nodding almost absentmindedly to the analogy. "Faced with fresh armies from two of the greatest kingdoms of Greece, we were, again, slowly being pushed back to our homeland. Before our queen relented onto the desperation to use the Harbinger again however, Athena returned to us, with Hera and Artemis. The three of them, offering us sanctuary and succor here, in Paradise."

"So to use this Harbinger you'd have to sacrifice someone." Clark confirmed before his lips curled and he turned to glare at Fate. "You're right. That's not going to happen."

The gold helmet atop the sorcerer's head, shading his eyes from view, could not hide the sheer _loathing_ he felt for the moral _stupidity_ he perceived here.

"Naive children...all of you. One sacrifice before the weight of your entire world is hardly unreasonable."

This time, Clark turned fully to face the magic user, standing almost a full head taller than the diminutive sorcerer, helmet or no helmet. "Its not happening. We're not sacrificing anyone."

Fate matched his glare, unafraid. "It must be done. And if you are too foolish to see that, I have only one alternative to offer you."

Superman nodded, crossing his arms over his broad chest. "We're all ears."

"There is only one way to Summon the Harbinger, without the need for a sacrifice. Though, in all truth, I am not certain."

Clark looked to Diana, who glared at fate with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

"How?" He asked.

The sorcerer pointed. "By using one whom the Gods have already entrusted with many of their gifts."

Clark didn't need to see where his gold covered finger was pointed to.

"No." He said.

"It will be done one way or the other." It was clear Fate was not going to change his stance on this. "The Harbinger must be summoned. It will be done with or without your assistance, Justice League, but it will be done."

"Are you threatening us."

"Threats are not made to children, only promises." He sneered. "Though without your help the chances of success against Hades will be next to impossible. I will not simply roll over and accept death because you're all too foolish to do what is necessary to ensure the survival of your own world.

Clark moved to protest when this time, Diana cut him off.

"Even should we say yes, my people no longer have all the pieces of the Armor. Only The Wailing Doom, remains with us. The helmet was granted to a Macedonian king before we left for Themyschera, and the gauntlet was taken to an ancient ruin, considered old even when my people first founded our kingdom."

"The Helm of Courage, also known as the helmet of of Alexander the Great, to mortal men." Fate elaborated. "A museum in Athens is quite proud of their recent discovery of such a piece, especially in so fine a condition." Immediately, an image appeared, as though caught in a bubble in Fate's hands, depicting a gold helmet, blue dyed horse hair as the crest going from the top of the head to the back of the neck, a crowing set of horns on either side, framing the eye-catching color.

"And the Gauntlet of Blood." Another image emerged, depicting a red gauntlet, an emerald jewel carved into the center of it. This piece, in contrast to the glass frame surrounding the previous armor, was instead, surrounded by stone walls, overgrown with slithering vines which snaked their way up the walls in their overgrown state, runes were carved into the stand along its side. Clark couldn't recognize the language.

The image disappeared. "Both of these Items need to be recovered to summon the Harbinger. They must be taken quickly, and at relatively the same time. Hades spies are everywhere and should they realize our intent, they would see the items taken elsewhere.

"Why not simply destroy them?" Clark asked.

"These pieces were forged by Hephaestus himself. No weapon on the mortal plane, can hope to harm them." The Sorcerer explained the inflection of his tone showing just how beneath him he thought the answer was. "We can only hope that, in his haste to be free of the Underworld, Hades' arrogance will make itself known once again and that he will not think to interfere with these items in any way, or, better yet, that he does not conceive of the fact that any of my kind have seen through the veil of time and have discovered a way to potentially stop it."

Clark looked to Diana, then to Kara. "We need to discuss this in private."

Though impatient, Fate nodded stiffly, recognizing that they would not make a decision until they discussed it amongst themselves.

Brushing past Superman and the two women he spoke over his shoulder as he walked out.

"Speak quickly, time is a luxury we do not possess."

As the door was closed behind him with a click, Clark turned his eyes to the dark corner of the room.

"You get all that?"

Emerging from the shadows with a narrowed gaze and a displeased expression. The dark Knight nodded.

"Yea, I did."

* * *

Well here you go, hope you all enjoyed this bit.


	8. Chapter 8

In all her long years of knowing Bruce, Zatanaa had never dreamed she would be where she found herself, right now.

I mean come on, who could ever, (besides maybe Robin or Nightwing) ever even have half a dream of sitting in the cockpit of the Batplane, and actually operating it.

Well...operating wasn't..._entirely _accurate...she was really more of just...sitting around and scrolling through the two terabytes worth of music he had in his database (Tim's idea, Alfred had mentioned) while the plane flew itself to some homing beacon Bruce had set up on the island.

Still...she was flying in the freakin' batplane for crying out loud.

She'd never been on a plane before, there was no need to spend hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours cramped in a steel and fiberglass cylinder thousands of feet above the ground, stuffed next to some obnoxious bastard one couldn't stand because he was snoring or smelled or something when teleportation was so very very convenient by comparison.

Unlike most places however, Themischera was well protected against magic. Very well protected

So she'd mounted up on her first plane ride

She doubted the aforementioned experiences would ever compare to this though.

The Wayne patriarch's private jet was flying low, low enough so that she could see the water of the ocean sparkling like a canvas of glimmering diamonds with the full moon above her head, obscured only by a thin sheet of polished glass.

So, for her first plane experience she was probably getting a ride even regular pilots could barely dream of.

It paid to have a billionaire friend.

Still all good things must come to an end as the bat-plane's private computer chimed around her ears in its monotone, mechanical voice. _"Beginning final approach. Calculating landing course vectors."_

With a smooth roll of the wings the ship arched through the sky, heading north now as it approached the island.

The genuine greek architecture, with bright fires, smoldering within bronze braziers lighting up the white marble of the structures into shades of gold Zatanna found herself breathless. Even the dark shadows of the night seemed to serve only as accents to the beauty of paradise.

"Wow." She breathed. "Wonder if they have time share offers."

Finally the plane stopped, hovering over a wide field about a mile or so outside the main city proper.

Even in the cockpit, the roar of the engines was almost deafening to her ears, a high pitched, keening wail that drowned out everything else as the engines brought the plane to a gentle descent.

Finally the ship lurched, halting its fall as she felt the engines dying before the cockpit door opened with a hiss.

Standing, she looked around, the cave had a convenient little ladder for her to get up onto this thing; here was no such thing. Leave it to a man that leapt off of skyscrapers on a regular basis to think of everything to put into a plane, including three terabytes of music and not think of putting in an easy means of entering and exiting the damn drivers seat.

She looked a bit more, before finally deciding that there was nothing more for it. She stood up on the lip of the cockpit entrance and hopped off.

She would decide later that scraping her hands and knees was not the most graceful end to her first plane trip.

Dusting herself off and beginning to make her way closer to the city, it wasn't long before two armored women on horseback approached.

"Speak your name." One of them said, the larger one, with hair like bright fire.

"Zatanna." She answered simply, wondering just how many people the Amazons could possibly be expecting.

"They said you would come." The woman said before looking to her companion, who nodded and dismounted in one smooth motion. "Come, we must make all haste to the city."

It took Zatana a moment before she realized what they were intending. "Whoa whoa wait, I'm a city girl, I've never ridden a horse in my life!"

"Then you will have to learn quickly." The amazoness bit out harshly before jerking her head. "Now mount. There's no time to loose. I will pull your horse myself if I have to."

Zatana stared at the massive, smelly creature that stood infront of her, shaking its head with a puff of air escaping its nostrils as it snorted, or scoffed. Either way she was sure the horse was not impressed by her.

Another thing the damn billionaire didn't think of was to find a closer parking space.

* * *

"I don't like this." Clark said. "Are we actually contemplating doing this? Stealing!"

"Your human laws may be broken considering the stakes Kryptonian." Dr. Fate answered, his hand following a smooth line that was burned into the floor of the throne room, runic symbols forming two perfect circles.

Superman glared at the sorcerer. "Tyrants and criminals always feel the end justifies the means."

"Then perhaps they have a point." The mage answered calmly.

"Clark." Bruce cut in, deciding this little debacle wasn't going to get them anywhere. "We don't have a choice in this. Even throwing down the Wayne name would only get us a day, at the most with it and that'd be after weeks of negotiation and hundreds of thousands in donations and bribes."

"I don't like this Bruce."

"I'm sure-" the Princess of the amazons said. "-that no one here likes the thought Kal. But..." She glared at Doctor Fate. "It must be done."

There were several moments of silence, in which Clark's rigid posture did not change.

Even after hours of arguing and haggling, they'd not exactly agreed to go through with the whole "summoning the Harbinger" plan, but had mannaged to agree that they _should_ if worst came to worst have _something_ of a backup plan if they couldnt think of anything else. None of them had liked it. But it was the only option anyone could think of at the moment. Even Clark realised that, it'd been mainly through a great deal of luck that they'd pushed back Hades last time.

Then of course there came the part of getting the pieces. Picking the gauntlet from the ruin was an easy choice to make. To take the helmet from the museum however put Clark in all kinds of knots; as if the Kryptonian didnt have to swallow a pill already by even _contemplating_ using his friend as a sacrifice for the Wargod's Harbinger.

He seemed to want to do or say something more. And then, as if sensing this, Kara decided to step forward, placing a hand on her cousins shoulder. "So who's going where?"

Before someone else could answer the younger kryptonian, the _clock, clock _of horse shoes against the stone floor interrupted them.

All but Fate turned, staring as Zatana awkwardly dismounted from the steed that stood in the courtyard, grunting, cursing, and nearly falling when her foot got snagged on the saddle's foot harness.

Wiping her hands the dark haired magician began to climb the stairs. "I'm here. I'm here." She panted. "My thighs and ass are killing me and I smell like a seven hundred pound animal that happily takes a dump in the middle of the street but I'm here."

She looked to Bruce, smirking in his direction as he offered a nod in greeting. "Bruce."

"Zatanna." He gestured to the others. "Superman, Wonderwoman and Supergirl. Now, do what I called you here to do."

The magician ignored the billionare's attitude, smiling and shaking the hands of the others. "Nice to finally meet ya. Zatanna, magician extraordinaire. And one of Bruce's old friends."

"Nice to meet you too." Wonder Woman answered before glaring at Bruce. "Though he never mentioned you before today."

"He tends to do that, for all of Alfred's good graces and manners he wasn't able to beat them over Bruce's head hard enough for them to stick."

Bruce scowled. He definitely needed more friends he could intimidate.

Finally however, Zatana decided to stop annoying the man and get down to business, looking to the interior of the throne room, she instantly found this supposed _Doctor Fate._

Though his back was turned to her, and his hands burned in the runes for his spell, she knew he was watching her with eyes beyond the ones in his head, measuring her.

Time she did the same.

To the world beyond, she blinked.

To her; her consciousness transcended.

When she opened her eyes again she stood in front of Fate,his eyes on hers and she could feel the pressure of that gaze upon the very surface of her mind, scanning over thoughts and secrets, taking what he needed, discarding what was irrelevant.

Her walls came up in an instant and as she returned the favor, so did his, the sixth sense to the human's five.

She struggled against him like this for what could have been ages upon the realm of the immaterial. Poking and prodding him for weaknesses while trying to maintain her own.

The pressure of the arcane was heavy in the space between their mindsand more and more she found herself struggling; her concentration divided between defense and attack while he seemed as immovable as a mountainside, and as irresistible as the advance of the sea.

Finally, he found a weakness in her armor.

She noticed her mistake in an instant, and in the next devoted her full focus to shielding herself, bracing her mind for the assault.

_'Naive child'_ She heard a moment before the full force of Fate's arcane power smashed down her resistances. Her long held shields, formed, crafted, and perfected through years of study and practice, were torn down and cast aside like a child's playthings and the surface of her mind was lain bare to his all seeing gaze.

She tried to pull free, to escape, but to her horror the talons of his magic snared her with an almost violent grip, caging her mind here, holding her so she could not flee

She struggled as hard as she could. Her mind, and thoughts strugling and raging against him. But it was for nothing.

The light of his witch sight burned a path into her mind, holding her firmly so she could not turn away.

The ancient sorcerer's inner sight tore apart any last vestiges of resistance she may have given, sliping into the corridors of her psyche in a whitewash of power.

The hands of his magic felt like boiling liquid, churning and flowing as storms of long forgoten memory were dredged up and examin. Nothing that she was could escape this.

If she could have, she'd have screamed

Nothing was safe, all her history, her knowledge, her power her secrets- all that she was- lay defenseless to him. And with unfathomable precision and speed, he scoured over it, cataloging everything that she was in mere seconds.

Here, now, she knew what it was to be completely helpless. With a proverbial twitch of his finger, he could wipe away memories, alter thought patterns, rewrite her entire personality.

Or he could simply...erase everything.

She knew this because she'd done it before. To rogue witches and warlocks who used their powers to bring harm onto others, or whom tried to bend the laws of nature further than they should be bent. She and others like her had all been where Fate stood right now at some point in their lives.

It was such sheer terror that she felt, such horrifying, nauseating emotions with an intensity that she never knew could have existed, that even Fate could feel the force of her terror bleeding into his own mind through his shields. For the briefest of moments, their minds were unified, as he scowered through the deepest vestules of her consciousness. He tasted her heart, the colors, the shades of her soul, he looked uppon pieces of the woman even Zatana herself could not comprehend.

And with every passing moment, she felt the nauseating fear only growing. Her heart pounded in her chest, a harsh, erratic pace that thundered beneath her flesh that sent her fingers tingling with excess blood flow and would leave her twitching with shakes and adrenalin fueled motions long afterward.

It was a sensation he was more than familiar with.

This is what terror, truly was. And within the prison her mind had now become, she could not even scream and none would know what was happening until it was too late.

Then, just as easily as he had come, he pulled away, the fires of his magic retreating leaving nothing unchanged but leaving a very clear message for the woman to both interpret, and feel as the Wizard pulled out the fear that had ensnared her in the farthest brinks of panic and overcome her every thought as he violated the sanctum of her thoughts.

To him, it was as simple as pulling a strand of hair from a shirt.

And though, due to this action, imediately the fear vanished as soon as he pulled away from her, the relief she felt remained a near palpable thing all the same as she felt the witch-sight of his sixth sense turn away with nothing altered, and no magic forces bearing down on her thoughts.

Only the fear taken, only the fear, and as he held it in the taloned grip of his will she knew something else.

He could put that fear back in.

She returned to her body, with a jarring suddenness to her mind that was not reflected in her physical form, to the others it was just a brief twitch of her neck, as though she'd given a strange half nod, with her head tilting just a little upwards.

"-ow do you intend to test him?" She just managed to catch the tail end of Bruce's words. It was enough to deduce the rest of it.

She sucked in a breath, trying with some success to calm down and reign in the emotions that still hammered her heart in her chest. "He's the real thing Bruce."

If he was surprised, the Dark Knight didn't show it, simply turned his sights on her, the narrowed glare of the Bat proving to be quite harmless in comparison to what she'd gone through just moments ago.

She glared right back.

He eventually, turned back to Fate.

Marching up to the sorcerer's side he spoke as the others joined him. "What exactly is your plan for this.

"Both pieces must be taken at the same time." Fate answered without turning away from his work. "Taking one may alert our enemies and as such they will move to take the other or guard it from us. As it stands, Hades believes none have seen his impending arrival and so has not moved to take either piece. I have no doubt that such a thing will change if one of those pieces were to go missing. We shall split our efforts. Two groups. The arrival of your witch is both timely and fortuitous. In this way, both groups will now have a user of magic to their advantage."

Bruce, Clark, Diana, Kara and Zatana each looked at each other, the mutual, unasked question being _"Who goes with who?"_

Smiling to hide the lingering unease that began to snake its way back into her at the mere memory of what had been done, Zatanna pounced forward, wrapping an arm around either female. "Girls night out boys. Why don't you all go off to a strip club or something while we go do our work."

Bruce and Clark stared at each other before both men shrugged.

"There." Fate finally said, the two runic circles on the floor, pulsing with arcane energies now. "These will transport us near the artifacts location, and they shall return us here once we have them."

Zatanna stepped up, peering down at the strange symbols. Pacing around them. "I recognize some of these but others-"

"Are beyond your station." Fate interrupted, stepping into his circle before turning around. "Come. Now. There is no time to be wasted here."

Together, Superman and Batman stepped into the runes, its glow, intensifying for a moment before the three vanished an instant later, disappearing with a flash before the magical glow died away.

"Well I guess that just leaves us!" Kara said before floating over to their designated circle. "Do you think this is gonna hurt?"

"Nah. It'll just feel really weird." Zatanna answered, letting out a breath as she stepped over the edge.

"How weird?" She asked.

The magician shrugged. "Kinda relative between person to person."

In the next moment, Kara would find out that traveling through the confines of time and space, bending reality to traverse thousands of miles in a matter of seconds would be _'slightly' _more uncomfortable than just _a bit weird_

* * *

He found himself face down in the sand, groaning with a sick, nauseating twist to his gut and every bone of his body aching. "Ohhh...that hurt"

"I agree." Came the gruff voice of his dark friend as the man began to stagger to his feet, one hand on his stomach.

Clark rolled onto his back, vaguely wondering if this is what getting sick felt like. How could he have been stupid enough to actually _"want"_ to experience this when he was younger?

"Stand up Kryptonian"

Clark opened his eyes, glaring up at the half cast moon that hung over their heads. One lip curled. The last person he wanted to hear right now was the damn sorcerer.

At least the smell of the sea was soothing enough to get his stomach to calm down.

Finally he pushed himself off the floor, sand and grit clinging to his clothes before he turned and looked to the structure that loomed out the side of the cliff.

"Where exactly are we?"

Fate marched on, closer to the ruin, overgrown with vegetation its hallways crumbling as great roots plowed their way through its walls. With a flicker, a light bloomed from his palm, hovering over his outstretched hand in a small ball.

"I forget how short the memories of mortals are." His voice echoed back to them as he entered the cavernous passage.

As Clark moved to follow, Bruce placed a firm hand on his shoulder, stopping him. "If he does anything that seems even remotely suspicious. Bring him down." He glared at the Kryptonian through the lenses of his cowl. "Don't hesitate."

Kent didn't get a chance to reply before Bruce walked on, following the magic user into the ruins.

* * *

With an apology in her eyes Zatana knelt in front of the other two women, a bottle of newly purchased water worth one and a half euro's each she'd gotten from transforming dollars she held the offerings forward. "I guess I shoulda' warned you that non magic users can find the experience to be just a little more than uncomfortable."

"That would have certainly been welcome" Diana answered, breathing hard as she finished chugging down half a bottle before starting to get to her feet.

Their magic user had the decency to look sheepish.

Finally when everyone's stomachs were settled Diana rose to the sky. "Come on, I know where the museum Fate said the helmet was displayed in."

"How did I guess you'd be the one to know? Lemme guess Greece was your first visit when you left the island?" Kara asked rhetorically, picking up Zatana before following.

Diana smiled, shrugging her shoulders.

* * *

If you all want someone to blame for the late update, look no further than Bioware and Dragon age 2.


	9. Chapter 9

His boots crunched heavily against the stone floor as he landed, small cracks and snaps echoing through the enclosed space as rocks shifted over more rocks.

Fate and Superman descended right next to him, the ball of light conjured by Fate spreading its luminance through the dark hallway, revealing what the blackness kept hidden.

"Holy..."

"Behold." Fate cried, spreading his arms wide. "You are the first mortals to lay eyes upon this ancient wonder since the time of the Seer Eleril."

The hallway was massive. He had seen many great structures in his travels as Bruce Wayne and as Batman. The citadel of Oa, the pyramids of Giza, the Sistine Chapel, the Fortress of Solitude, hell, even Themyschera itself but none of those could really compare to this.

The chamber was so tall it defied belief. And not a single support pillar could be seen, it was a long, high structure, a pointed ceiling at the very top, so tall he could swear that directly above it was the mountain's crust, serving only as mere camouflage.

He looked to the side, peering at the walls next to him, leaning in close he noted that they were carved from some material he couldn't identify. He scrutinized it a bit more, stepping closer...it was there...yet...not there almost, like some...strange solid illusion. If he had to compare it to anything it would be that synthetic stone on theme park rides and such. He reached out his hand, touching it.

"It will not react." Fate said, as though Batman had actually been expecting such a thing. "The Bone is long since dead."

"Bone!" Superman balked. "What the hell could have bones this size."

"It is not bones as you know them. No...and it is too much to go through now. We must find the gauntlet. Time is short."

"How long has it been since this place was...activated?" Clark asked as they made their way down the hallway.

Fate paused, seemingly in thought. "It would be some, ten thousand human years If I am not mistaken."

"I don't recognize the Architecture. It doesn't even bear a resemblance to anything of the ancient world. Not Aztec, Babylonian, or even Greek." The Billionare commented walking over to the walls and passing his hand over the carvings there.

"The seers of those times granted aspects of their craft to the humans of the world. All distinct pieces of a greater whole. They'd hoped you'd someday learn to combine the various branches into one form. The shards forming the one again. But, as usual, mortals have a tendency to disappoint their betters." The disdain in Fate's voice was obvious, and Bruce wasn't entirely sure if some, or all of that was directed pointedly at him.

It may have been paranoid of him. But that was the impression he got.

"Lets just get the Gauntlet." He said, marching just a little bit faster.

* * *

"Okay so...how do we get in?" Kara asked as the three stood across the street from the museum, using the shadows of an alley for cover.

"That's the easy part, Zatanna answered with a smile before motioning the two women to follow.

They crossed the empty street, keeping well out of sight until they reached the museum's side.

"We'll just walk right in."

Pulling her wand free from her coat before she waved it in front of the cold stone the witch spoke. _"Ssap su tel dna trap ssalg dna latem enots fo sllaw"_

With barely a sound, the walls opened up for them, revealing what must have been the Museum's Reliquary.

The magician offered a graceful bow. "After you."

"Impressive." Diana commented, smiling as she stepped through the doorway.

"I aim to please."

"No kidding." Kara said as the walls sealed up behind them. "Now my turn." Turning her sky blue eyes to the ceiling above the Kryptonian activated her x-ray vision.

"There." She said after several seconds of looking. "Two floors above, display case." She looked a little closer. "I see a lot of lasers."

"How many?" Diana asked.

"From this distance...a dozen, maybe a bit more."

"Well we're not getting through em by standing here. Zatana finally said before she began walking towards the nearest elevator.

"Wait." Diana suddenly cried a thought coming to her. "What about cameras. Even if we were to return the helm of Alexander, we would still be seen as criminals for stealing it."

"Psh." Zatana scoffed as she waved her wand again. "No problem._ Mees yeht sa ton era sgniht os thgil dneb neesnu niamer ot_"

With a waver in the air, like the distortion caused by the heat of a fire, Zatana vanished from their eyes.

Diana smiled. "Again impressive."

"Thanks. But both of you get in close, I cant exactly spread this spell too far from me."

"Why hasn't Bruce mentioned you to us before?" Diana asked rhetorically as she walked closer to where Zatana had previously stood, feeling the arcane energy prickle over her skin before she could see Zatana's smiling face again.

"Oh you know how men are. Particularly that man." Zatana rolled her eyes.

"Stubborn, secretive-"

"- complete idiots for anything involving social graces and an absolute control freak." The magic user finished with a wry smile that the Amazon princess easily understood.

* * *

The hallway was long, Bruce could guess they'd walked about a mile, maybe two down here and still the thing looked like it would stretch on forever.

"How much farther is this?"

Instead of answering, Fate turned and stared at him, then, as if coming to a realization his head lifted a bit. "Ahh, forgive me. It slipped my mind."

Wondering what he was talking about, neither Bruce, nor Clark needed to wonder for very long as Fate brought his hands up, palms outward, level with their faces.

"_Gniydnu eht fo stfig eht htiw liev eht ecreip gnieesnu slatrom fo seye,"_

For a brief second, neither Bruce nor Clark could see anything, then their sight returned, only this time instead of a wide, empty hallway, there were massive statues lining the sides of the chamber as well.

Clarked looked around the room, there must have been hundreds of them, each stood at roughly ten feet tall, their bodies were spindly, almost stick like, all but the heads, which were bulbous, elongated crests, that hung from their thin necks, shaped almost like a teardrop, or a doodled fish it gave Clark, strangely, the impression of a somber kind of sculpture, though there were no physical characteristics to the thing's "face" just a smooth shell.

Each of them stood in perfectly ordered rows of three, lined through the entire walkway.

He also noticed that these things seemed to be made of the same _bone_ the archways itself were made of.

"What are these?" Bruce asked, voicing it before Clark had a chance to.

"The sentinels, warriors of the seers. Tread carefully, though the bone is long since inactive, it would be foolish, and deadly...to anger any of them."

"They're still alive?" Clark balked. "But its been ten thousand years!"

"Longer. They are as alive as you are when dreaming." Without another word, Fate continued to walk down the hallway, which Bruce now noticed, its end was only a few more hundred yards down.

Clark continued to glance at the sentinels surrounding them. "Maybe these ancients should have invented an alarm clock or something."

* * *

It didn't take them long to find the display. Being the centerpiece of the entire expose on Alexander the Great. Even at this hour it was illuminated by carefully angled lights. Making it stand out like a black beetle on a white tiled floor.

"Supergirl, where are the lasers we cant get to close, my magic bends light so its too much of a risk that we'll set them off."

"They're all around it, even rows around the display case, three on each side, four inches apart maybe.

"Are there any above?" Diana asked.

"Ummm..." The kryptonian floated upwards, a foot or so off the ground. "Nope, its clear overhead, though one of the rows of lasers around it is about six inches higher than the display case."

"But there are none directly above it?" The warrior woman asked.

"No"

"That works... now all we need to do is figure out how to get rid of the display case."

"Melt it with heat vision?" Kara asked.

"Nah nah too risky, glass could melt just as easily as it could shatter." Zatanna answered. "Let me try something."

With a wave of her wand, the glass case was cut at the edges, separating its four sides and top. With another twitch of her wrist the four sides were pulled apart.

"Stop!" Kara yelled, "You're getting close to the lasers!"

"Where can I move them?"

"Let them all down slow, there are no lasers on the floor."

With careful precision and deliberate slowness, the magic user eased the five pannels of glass down to the hardwood floors at the foot of the plinth.

"My turn now." Diana said, pulling free the Lasso at her side. "Follow me."

Picking up Zatana, Kara flew up with the Amazonian, keeping them all inside the invisibility bubble as they hovered over the exposed helmet.

Lowering the lasso carefully with a small loop the meta carefully angled it so it would go right next to one of the helmets crowning horns.

Then, with a flick of her wrist, the lasso's loop wrapped around the helmet's horn. With a strong yank, she jerked it up to her height, catching it easily with her free hand.

She stared at the thing for a second or two, turning it over in her hand before Kara voiced what all three of them were thinking.

"Well...that was easy."

Diana nodded, staring at the thing as though she expected it to start burning her hand at any given moment. It was a vague realization that she'd just committed a criminal act. But she still felt a sickening, sour taste in her mouth.

Her dislike for Fate and his damn plan were growing with every passing second she felt the weight of this ancient thing in her hand.

"Anyone up for gellato? Its on me." Zatana suddenly perked up, making Diana stare at her in surprise.

"Are you-"

"Serious? Of course I am. This was done quick, we'll be finished in an hour and be back before bedtime. Cross my heart." She smiled.

* * *

The gauntlet is resting on a podium of finely carved silver, designed to look like looping vines curling around each other as they formed the platform for the piece of armor.

The Dark Knight looked around him, there were no traps he could identify, nothing distinguishable. Though the chamber was made of magic so he supposed that he wouldn't see anything until it sprung on him.

Indeed, the only thing he could see here besides the podium and the gauntlet was the lone, massive statue that loomed over them against the far wall. It looked like the sentinels that lined the hallway, only much bigger, its hands were sharpened to claws, a massive, curved, single edged sword in one hand, its other hand was held out, as though beckoning someone to take it.

"You see anything Fate?"

"No. If the ancients left defenses here, the spells that hide them are beyond my power."

Bruce felt his lip curl. Fate was supposedly powerful, so that did not bode well. "Kent, go in, you're the only one that can move fast enough if something happens."

"Oh. Don't be so worried about my safety Bruce I can go in and get it, its no problem." The kryptonian said with obvious sarcasm as he edged forward, inching his way closer and closer

The Smallville raised alien felt his eyes darting this way and that way, to shadowed corners and strange looking panels on the walls and floor.

Finally, he reached forward, his hand wrapping around the gauntlet's forearm. Giving another look to his surroundings, he pulled it off of the podium.

One second, two, three.

"That was it?"

"Apparently." Bruce answered the kryptonian's question.

"Seems too easy." Clark said turning around to face the Dark Knight and Fate, an odd expression on his face. "I expected a bit more of a challen-"

There was a loud crunching sound, stone falling on stone and with a dawning realization on his face, Clark turned around in time to see the massive statue that had been lodged into the wall, pulling itself free; its lithe, thin body shaking the entire chamber as it moved, ripping itself off the stonework, revealing thin, skeletal like quills on his back, curved almost like wings. Jewel like orbs running the length of its body glowed bright red, activating.

"Oh hell."

"Next time you want to open your mouth Kent; Don't!"

The creature stood up tall, brandishing its sword as it seemed to sweep its gaze through the room, its bulbous head angled down towards them.

A voice reached their minds, slithering through like a garden snake. It didn't take a genius to know that the thing was speaking.

"_**They call to me in death...as they did in life."**_

The hallway shook around them with its footsteps, its thin, lithe body belying its true weight as every step seemed to threaten a massive cave in.

"It's the Guardian!" Fate cried, backing away as the statue lumbered forward,seemingly gaining strength with each movement.

"_**Knowledge was kept from you...for a purpose."**_

It raised its blade.

"Heads up." Clark yelled, tossing the gauntlet to Bruce who caught it with simple reflex rather than conscious thought.

Darting to the side the last son of Krypton avoided the blade that was about as tall as a small building as it crashed over where he'd previously stood.

"_**It was held secret, your comprehension locked away. Your minds...too young...far too young."**_

It pulled the weapon free, its movements sluggish.

Clark shot forward like a bullet, his two fists smashing into the side of the statue's head.

He would figure at a later date that the feeling was comparable to a normal human smashing his fists, full force, against a solid brick wall.

The kryptonian screamed, his fingers loosing their strength as he pulled them to his chest in reflexive pain, knuckles throbbing. The moving statue barely even budged.

That is until, it backhanded Clark into the chamber's ceiling, the force of the impact made the entire room shake as stones crumbled and fell from the roof.

Below, Fate turned to Batman. "Go. Your weapons are of no use against the Guardian, I and Kal-El will hold him off. Once you are out, you are safe, it cannot travel past the boundaries of the hall, its power source is limited."

Without a glance back, Bruce turned and bolted, his cape fanning out behind him as he leaps off the dais and began running as fast as he could from the scene of the fight.

His quick retreat did not go unnoticed.

"_**You kin are unprepared, unworthy. Return what you have taken now!"**_

Bruce nearly tripped over his own cape in his rush to stop as six of the smaller statues that had lined the hallway "woke up", each taking three steps forward, blocking the middle of the hall as blades of energy emerged from their wrists, slowly stalking forward, their intent clear enough to him.

He drew three explosive battarangs before throwing them at the sentinels thin, delicate looking feet.

They went off with a quick and short _bang_ that drowned out the sounds of fighting behind him while leaving his ears ringing as well.

He was not entirely surprised when all the sentinels were still standing, walking easily through the smoke and upturned dust.

_'Of course they'd be fine, that would be too easy.'_ He mentally snarled. He. Really. Hated. Magic.

Darting his eyes to the tall ceiling above, he hoped the grapple had enough force to throw the hook that high.

Pulling the device from his utility belt, it shot with the all too familiar hiss of released air pressure, the the forked head rising towards the roof before, much to his satisfaction he heard the snap of the hook head digging its way into the roof.

Now he just had to pray the grip would be strong enough to hold his weight.

He was pulled into the air, the familiar weight of his body falling onto his shoulder and arm as he kept a firm grip on the grapple.

Murphy's indisputable law came true once again however, as a shot from some wrist mounted weapon from another of the sentinels hit the Grapple's wire with pin point accuracy.

With a mental curse he fell, rolling as he hit the floor, just past the activated sentinels.

They lumbered towards him, their slow, ponderous movements were quickly gaining further coordination and speed. Like they were throwing off the vestiges of sleep and tiredness before kicking it to full speed.

He drew three more explosive batarangs, ready to toss them when the six sentinels deactivated, powering down with a deep, hollow hum of energy before their signature babbling gurgles reached him from the direction of the exit.

If he had to guess, he'd say the now between him and the rear of the chamber were deactivated in favor of six others between him and the exit.

True to form, as he turned to look six other sentinels were waking up, and making their way towards him, the crackling energy swords once again lighting up from their wrists.

_**'Return what you have taken, or be destroyed, mortal.'**_

Bruce frowned, tying the gauntlet to his belt with what little remained of the wire from his grappling hook as he pulled free two 'shock knuckles' from another pocket.

Rushing forward without a word Bruce's fist found its way to one sentinel's bulbous head.

To his immense surprise, the thing's head shattered, its glowing jewels and pearl like head growing gray and dim as it toppled over, apparently dead.

Unknown to Bruce however, calculations and adjustments were being made by the remaining five.

_Weapon make up-Charged electrons of positive and negative polarities. Conductor: Platinum. 700 joules of electric discharge upon impact. Velocity: 9.1 meters per second. Peak force; 0.4 tons Calculating force in conjunction with velocity. Total force upon impact 0.69 tons._

_Adapting._

The jewels on their bodies gave a small glow for half a second before returning to their normal state.

Bruce didn't notice, focused on attacking now that he'd found some freak weakness in these things, he lashed out with another punch.

This time however, when the charged knuckles hit the creature, the electricity jumped right back, rushing up the length of his arm with jolts of pain as the electricity caused his muscles to convulse before throwing him back, heart hammering sporadically in his chest and an intense sensation of pins and needles running up his entire arm as his back struck the floor.

He'd said it before and he'd say it again.

He **hated **magic.

He moved to stand, pain lancing up the arm that had been shocked as it nearly gave way under his weight.

The five sentinels were marching closer, the one in the front extending his hand.

The blade vanished to be replaced by what he could only assume was some kind of gun that was revealed from a compartment along its forearm.

There was a blur of blue and red before Bruce found Clark had come to his rescue, his fist punching straight through one of the sentinels before tossing its limp corpse into two of its fellows and turning right back and punching his next opponent with a wide left hook.

"These guys seem to break easier than the big one. Come on, I'll cover you!"

Bruce nodded, standing before he heard the thunderous footsteps behind him. Glancing over his shoulder he just managed to catch sight of Fate, chanting something that made the roots and vines of the overgrowth whip out towards the Guardian, restraining the massive construct as it slowly struggled free.

"Go!" Fate yelled, flying away from the thing with all of his speed. "It will not hold him for long!"

* * *

Standing on the ceiling garden of some well to do citizen, Supergirl sat a few feet away, her legs dangling over the building's edge as they waited for Zatanna to come back, being the less conspicuous of the three she volunteered to go down and buy.

Finally having a chance to talk in private with the older Heroine however, Supergirl decided not to waste anymore time, rounding to face her, she called out. "Diana?"

"Hmm?" The brunette asked, turning away from the city as she looked to the young Kriptonian.

Kara paused, absently scratching the back of her neck as she hesitated. "Umm...well I just wanted to say...sorry ya know?"

"Sorry? What for exactly?" Though surprised, there was the lilt of amusement in her tone as well. "You haven't done anything that I can remember."

"For leaving you alone with Batman for a week." She answered as though it should be obvious.

Diana reeled for a moment, her mouth falling open before it twisted into a smile. "You think I'd be angry about that?"

"I would be." She answered. "I mean, the guy may be smart but putting up with him for a week? By yourself? Must have been damn near traumatic."

Diana laughed. "Really Kara he's not nearly as bad as you think."

"He _snarls!_" She emphasized.

Diana waved her off. "That's just because you haven't known him very long. He was the same way with Flash back when-" She stopped, remembering that he still snarled at Flash. "Well...he just grows on you, and vice versa I like to think."

"I don't think so. The guy's like an iceberg."

Diana's smile became wistful, remembering two days ago as he'd hugged her as she cried neither speaking nor backing away. Just there, a rock she could lean against in the storm. Always so sure to be there.

"You'll learn otherwise I think."

Kara shrugged.

With a gust of wind, and a brief flash of light Zatana appeared on the rooftop, three cones of vanilla ice cream in her hands "Hey guys, I'm back!"

With the smile still on her face Diana walked over, taking her cone with gratitude as Kara did the same.

Zatanna licked off a good portion of the sweet concoction, "You guys think the guys are having any trouble with the gauntlet?"

* * *

The doorway was in their sights, just a few more paces and they would have been in the proverbial clear. They'd pushed their way through wave after wave of sentinel statues, ran , almost full sprint down this chamber with the sounds of the biggest one of these things nipping at their heels.

Now this.

A damn force field sprouted out of the walls like it was a slide in from a childrens' book, its blue luminescence being just transparent enough to taunt them with the clear view of their exit.

"Fate what the hell is this."

"The Guardian must have activated this as a last resort means of holding us here. It must be desperate for this will drain its remaining power reserves quickly.

"Quick enough for it to never reach us?" Clark put in hopefully, looking down the hallway where the thing was rushing towards them/ Or flying towards them as would be the case, held aloft by some kind of anti-gravity suspenders.

"Unlikely." Fate answered shaking his head. "Kal-El, you must buy me some time, Stall the guardian however you can. I will work on opening this doorway."

Bruce looked behind them, narrowing his eyes behind the lenses of his cowl. "Then who's left to deal with the small ones?"

Fate looked to the Sentinels these were much closer than the guardian and would reach them first. So far, he and Kal-El had been more than enough to deal with any who tried to get in their way, but Kal-El would not be able to deal with the Guardian and the Sentinel's, and neither would he be able to bring down the door if he had to fight them.

There was only one choice left to them then.

He did not want it this way. It was too soon, and too likely to alert their enemy to their actions, but it was the only way.

"Batman, use the Gauntlet!"

Upon seeing both his and Kal-El's skepticism the sorcerer pressed on. "Do it! It is a creation of magic. A powerful one. If anything can help you damage the sentinels, it can."

Bruce hesitated only for another second before making his choice, untying it from his belt, the Dark Knight pulled off his own glove before settling the metal piece of armor over his right hand.

Staring at the sentinels he felt a stray thought cross his mind, almost vindictive in its nature.

_Time for round two then._

* * *

It came in a flash, words spreading across her eyes as though dancing a breath infront of her own face, swirling with runes and symbols of fire she'd never seen before, but could still somehow read as clear as any Greek or English presented to her.

She dropped the helmet, feeling it fall with the sound of metal striking stone.

She whipped her head around to look at the other two, finding on both of their expressions equal levels of surprise and confusion.

"Okay." Zatanna began for them. "You guys saw that too right?"

Diana nodded as did Kara.

"What the heck did it say though?" Kara asked, a shiver running up her spine. "The dead shall be dead?"

"The dead shall bear death. The damned shall be damned." Diana clarified before looking down to the helmet. "Anyone else think this thing is to blame?"

"Since today just so happens to be the day I get to walk around with an ancient magical helmet and have weird floating symbols dancing in front of my eyes. I think its safe to say this is a bit beyond coincidence D."

* * *

With a crackling bolt of energy the Gauntlet claimed its first target, going off with the force of a small concussion grenade, Bruce felt his ears close up, his bones shake, his heart stop and his gut sink for the briefest of moments before the sentinel shattered with the resistance of porcelain glass under the blow of a hammer.

The other Sentinels around him paused, hesitating, he didn't.

With a wide right hook the gauntlet smashed into the next sentinel, three left.

These didn't hesitate.

He ducked beneath the blade of one, his foot lashing out, more out of sheer instinct than any true thought.

He was rewarded with the sensation of having kicked a steel pipe with his shin.

He grit his teeth, scrambling back as one of the constructs took a swipe at his leg, leaving a scorching hot trail of melting stone and glassed dirt in its wake.

Another came at him from the side, he ducked beneath the wrist mounted blade before swinging the gauntlet wide, smashing the forearm into the thing's shoulder pauldron.

Again, its the _bone_ or whatever it was made out of shattered like glass, its body crumbling into the floor.

_Analyzing..._

He saw another deactivate its blade, its blaster emerging from the compartment along its arm.

He drew one explosive battarang, tossing it with pin point precision into the opening along the length of its arm, between the limb and the blaster.

The creature gave a hollow moan as the sliver of black metal exploded, the thin couplings that connected the weapon not being nearly as strong as the rest of its body. The thing didn't have a chance to recover before he pounced, whatever energy the gauntlet used turning it to little more than powder with one hit.

_Analyzing..._

One left.

_Analyzing..._

…

…

…

_Analysis...complete._

_Adapting._

Bruce turned with a flare of his cape, the gold piece of armor standing out almost garishly against the black of his armor.

He charged.

This time, his fist met only empty air.

The last sentinel moved fast, fast enough for its limb to be little more than a blur as its naked fist smashed into his side

The taste of copper and metal reached his mouth, his lungs burning with the lack of air as crippling agony spread through his side and chest.

He hit the ground hard, feeling the pull at his neck as his cape was caught beneath him, he rolled once, twice, finally stopping on his stomach as he coughed, blood mixed with saliva spread out on the floor.

The sentinel came in closer, standing over him before kneeling down and pushing the Dark Knight onto his back.

Bruce struck then, the gauntlet covered fist rising up in what would have been a devastating uppercut had it not been for the fact that the Sentinel caught it in his own hand.

Bruce grimaced. Goddamn Magic.

Like a blade driving through flesh, he felt the thing's words sinking into his mind, its disembodied voice bringing its own measure of pain to what he felt already. That last hit probably fractured a rib.

_**They call to us in death as they did in life." **_It repeated, and for the briefest moment Bruce wondered just who _they_ were before his thoughts returned to trying to find a way out of this.

The Sentinel grabbed him by his throat with its free hand, cutting off his air. Bruce gave a strangled, choked grunt as he was lifted off the ground, dangling almost a foot off the floor."

It released his fist and immediately he began punching the thing's arm, the gauntlets previous effectiveness all but gone despite the fact that every impact brought a release of the same energy that had destroyed the others before this one.

Again, its voice slithered through his mind like a thousand razors.

"_**So that the dead will bear death...and the Damned shall be Damned."**_

The energy blade activated again, and the smell of overcharged ozone stung Bruce's nostrils as he continued to struggle for breaths.

"_**To be slain without a word..."**_

It pulled back its arm ready to drive it through his exposed chest.

Then, with a screech it backed away, reeling as both hands flew up to the sides of its bulbous head.

When Bruce hit the floor he forced his legs to support him, looking around he saw Clark still holding off the Guardian, using his heat vision, ice breath, and any number of massive objects he could pull free from the ground and walls to throw at it.

The Guardian however, looked to be in as much pain as the one activated sentinel in front of him.

Looking over to Fate, he could safely assumed he was the one causing this.

The Sorcerer stood in front of the force field, tendrils of gold energy seeping through the blue of the energy curtain, like roots grinding their way through concrete.

He squinted, looking a bit closer where he could see a small opening forming in the force field, just enough to squeeze through.

"Kent!" He yelled, the stab of pain from the broken rib, cutting through his chest making him loose his breath for a moment.

The Kryptonian flew towards him, a blur of red before he stopped and grabbed Bruce by the arm before he kept flying towards the end of the hall.

Fate was hunched over, his arms shaking as though he was holding up some great weight, knees slightly bent as he groaned with the effort of whatever magic he was using.

"Move..." He hissed, and Bruce didn't need to be told twice, angling his body to slip through the narrow space waiting along the other side, one hand gripping his aching side.

"Can you make the space a bit wider!" Clark asked. "I just need a second to slip us both through?"

"Perhaps..." The magician breathed, sparks of electricity dancing along his body. "Get ready."

A second passed, then two before Fate yelled, a wave of power rippling out of his small frame that made the slit get just a bit bigger.

Grabbing the magician by the waist, Clark dashed forward, he worried for a moment if he'd broken something with the sudden acceleration but decided he'd worry about that after they got through the energy field.

They reached the other side, mili-seconds before the thing was closed completely, and Clark had to be mindful to not stop too suddenly, or he would snap Fate's spine with the whiplash.

Bruce looked across the force field, to the Guardian who still lumbered towards them.

It moaned out some sorrowful cry, that sounded more like a whale than anything an artificial construction would make.

When Bruce got worried however was when it raised its sword.

With a crash, the blade came down, waves of energy crashing over the stones at its feet before Bruce felt the earth shake beneath his boots.

He looked to the cave's ceiling. "No!"

With a deafening crack, stones began falling.

He turned and ran. "Move it move it! Cave in!"

Minutes later, battered, bruised and exhausted, the three men stepped on the familiar shores in front of the now collapsed cave.

Passing a hand over his face Clark couldn't help but give voice to a stray thought as it passed across his mind. "You think the girls had this much trouble with the helmet?"

* * *

Well, here's the next chap, hope you all enjoy it. If you want a clearer picture of what the Guardian and Sentinel's look like, look up on google images "Wraithlord" and "Wraithguard" respectively. Some may want to put Eldar Wraithlord/Eldar Wraithguard to make sure there's no confusion.

Anyway read and review please.

To my other fans, the next update for LS is about halfway finished.


	10. Chapter 10

They were standing in the shrine of Ares. A massive, gleaming statue of gold, cast in the war god's image loomed over them, a sword sheathed at his hip, a spear in one hand and the reins of his chariot in the other, pulled by his four horses: Aithon, Phlogios, Konabos and Phobos if Bruce recalled correctly.

They were forged from silver that he would be hard pressed to put a price tag to.

To one side of the temple was the place for offerings to the war god, and it escaped no one's notice that it was quite bare when taken into comparison with the other shrines.

To the other side, three plinths stood, only one lay bare, and as Bruce saw the head priestess and her acolytes gingerly carry The Gauntlet of Blood up the handful of steps to the last plinth Bruce couldn't shake that lingering feeling of unease.

The priestess and acolytes chanted a prayer, bowing before backing away, almost fearful that the objects would lash out at them on their own.

After several seconds of silence, Kara spoke up.

"Sooo...what happens now?" She asked, head swiveling this way and that way, looking for whoever would be the one to answer her.

Fate took up the task. "Now we wait."

"Wait for what?"

"The day designated to the God in order to conduct the ritual to summon him."

When it was clear he wasn't going to elaborate any further on his own she pressed on. "And that day isssss...?"

"Tuesday." It was Diana who answered. "Tuesday is Ares' day. We may call upon him now but Tuesday is the day when his connection to the earth is strongest. It will offer us the best chance for him to hear us."

"Not to mention that after so long of giving him the cold shoulder you don't want to make him any angrier." All eyes turned to Gotham's resident Bat.

Bruce shrugged. "Lucky guess." He said dryly.

"Ares has never been known for his benevolent nature." Diana said before once again tossing a glare in Fate's direction. "Nor his forgiveness."

The sorcerer turned to face her. "You fear he will demand more from you and your amazonian sisters in the future in exchange for him to grant you use of the armor's powers now." It wasn't a question. "Your fears are not unreasonable but remember that this is necessary Lady Diana."

The princess did not let up in her glare and Clark, both to diffuse the situation and satisfy his own curiosity stepped in. "But what about some of the other Gods? Zeus, Poseidon, hell, Hera or Athena that you're always going on about Diana? I mean couldn't they help. If Fate was able to discover that Hades was coming wouldn't they too?"

"They might." Bruce said from his place in the room, once again drawing eyes to him. "But would they be willing? None of the Gods I've read about tend to do things out of the goodness of their hearts."

"Its still worth a shot Bruce. I'd rather trust the goddess of wisdom than the God of War." The Kryptonian answered.

"Only two Gods-" Diana interrupted "Have the potential power to kill Hades. Zeus and Poseidon, but such a battle would tear the earth apart. Its why I have not beseeched aid from either one sooner." the princess finished as Kara raised her hand.

"Okay, when you say tear the earth apart you mean..."

Fate picked up the conversation from there. "Cataclysmic storms bringing down lightning from the heavens that could tear apart cities, waves the size of mountains rising from the ocean, eruptions that would split continents in two before spilling fire from the chasms-"

"Alright alright we get it." Zatanna said holding her hands out in a stopping motion. "That option's out."

"Ares is the only god with the martial might we require that will be limited enough to not level half of the earth's sphere as his power takes manifestation within the mortal realm. Again, I reiterate, this is what needs to be done." With a flourish of his gold cape Fate gave a sharp about face, a portal opening in the shape of an _Ankh_ in front of him, promptly sealing itself shut once again as he entered, leaving the five other heroes alone in the temple.

"Is it just me." Zatanna spoke, choosing to point out the obvious. "Or does he not like us very much?"

Kara and Clark shrugged their shoulders.

"What does it matter?" Diana scoffed. "We hardly need him to like us." And with that, she marched out of the temple, long strides swallowing the distance in moments before the remaining four heard the crack of the front gates falling shut once again.

"What's with her?"

"Forget about it." Bruce answered. "Whatever it is it'll pass."

As he turned to leave Kara's voice made him pause. "Oh wait, we forgot to tell you about what the helmet did!"

Turning back around he and Clark waited for an elaboration.

"After we'd grabbed the helmet, we'd been carrying it for a while when all of us saw weird symbols in front of us."

"Weird symbols as in-"

"Don't know." Zatanna answered with a shrug of her shoulders. "Never seen em before in my life, not even in my oldest spell-books. Cant recognize em' from anywhere."

"Yea-" Kara continued. "And it wasn't like they were hovering infront of us like a hologram but like...it was like we were looking through glass and the things were being projected on it. Its kind of hard to explain." She finished unsure, scratching the back of her head.

"The weird thing is. That even though none of us had ever seen any of those symbols before we could read them. Like someone was downloading the meanings right into our brain." Zatanna tapped the back of her skull for emphasis.

"Hmm. What did it say then?"

"The dead will bear death; the-"

"The damned will be damned." Bruce and Clark both voiced at the same time shocking the two women still with them.

"You guys saw it too?" Kara yelled.

"No. One of those sentinel guards said it to me before...Fate stunned them."

"And I heard it when it said it too."

Bruce was fairly sure Clark had caught his hesitation, and whether he realized what had been about to happen before Fate had begun interfering with whatever powered the Guardian and its sentinels, he knew better than to call him out on it in front of others.

The kryptonian valued his continued ability to breathe, after all.

"So-" Zatanaa mused, rubbing her chin. "What do you think that means? Other than the Amazonian's having given the Gauntlet to...whoever, to guard or something, what other connection do they share."

She expected anything but the answer she actually got from the Dark Knight. "I have no idea."

She almost choked on her spit as a laugh bubbled up from her throat. "Finally! Something you don't know! It only took me the better part of a decade to find it"

"Bruce already asked Fate before we got here." Clark continued, smiling at the joke. "He basically says his best guess is that _The witch seers of this land held closer ties with the Olympian Gods than I previously realized." _Clark emphasized making quotation marks with his fingers.

"So he has no idea either?"

"Nope."

"It doesn't matter, whatever connection they have, its secondary to Hades. Not to mention Ares. We have about thirty two hours before we may have to deal with the potential disaster of summoning a war god." Bruce cut in stopping them. "Kara" The bark that was her name, made the teenager's spine stiffen. "Fly back to Metropolis"

"What? Why? Whe-"

"Right now."

"Right now?"

"Right now." He repeated. "We need a presence in Metropolis, you and Clark have already been gone for two days so someone might start getting ideas without a Meta's presence. Get over there, get a few hours sleep, wake up, make a round, bust up something if you can then get back here."

"You've got to be-"

He glared.

She shut up.

He looked to Clark. "You're-" He paused, sounding strangely pained. "heading to Gotham."

Clark raised an eyebrow. "You need a stand in too?"

"Dick cant cover Budlahven and Gotham by himself. He told me a week ago that his criminals were starting to test the waters."

"A week?" Clark almost felt himself go into cardiac arrest. "Gotham's been without you for a _week_? Last time you asked me it'd been only for three days and it was mayhem."

"You'd better get going then shouldn't you? And actually break a limb or three this time. You don't pass well for me if you don't. And it's been more like ten days rather than just a week in Gotham.

Clark's mouth opened and closed for several moments, like a gasping fish searching for an answer, any answer.

All he could come up with was...

"I hate you."

"Don't care. Get moving."

Clark glared.

Choosing to save one of the two (she wasn't really sure which at this point.) Zatanaa smiled. "Well what do you have planned for me fearless leader?"

"Research." He said simply. "If Ares turns out to be anything like our last encounter with a Greek god I want us to be as prepared as we can be."

"And you don't trust Fate, so you want me to be a possible ace in the hole."

"Both for Ares and Hades." He confirmed. "You only have a couple of hours, so get some sleep for now, wake up and start studying."

The magician nodded.

* * *

Diana took a breath before walking into the room that she had been getting increasingly familiar with every passing day.

Entering, she spotted the Honor guard, still standing at the side of the room, spears and shields in their hands.

Always ready, warrior's forevermore.

She walked to her mother's side, the once healthy tan of her skin was gone through the weeks she'd been in this room, leaving her so pale Diana thought she may have been drained of blood.

Only the continued assurances from the healers that her condition was steadily improving since Fate's intervention eased her worry.

It was also the only reason she hadn't really lost her temper with the sorcerer since.

"Has there been any change?" She asked, not turning her gaze from her mother.

"No your majesty." One of the guards answered. "Earlier our queen moved in her sleep as though she were dreaming but did not wake."

At that the princess looked up, surprise on her face and for a moment her excitement broke through the careful control of her emotions. "Really? Well that's an improvement don't you think? Its certainly more than we've ever seen since she first fell asleep."

The guard nodded though her tone was carefully neutral. "It is your majesty. But it was only for a moment."

Diana took her mothers hand kneeling down to kiss the thin, cold knuckles in her hand. "At this point sister I am willing to take what I can get."

"Yes your majesty."

She stayed there for a few minutes, her thumb caressing the back of her mother's hand before she quietly stood, composing herself before leaving to her room down the hall. Dawn was only a few hours away and those were the only ones she could use for the only fitful sleep that she would probably get for a while.

Opening the door with a creak of hinges she sighed, she neither had the energy nor time really, to ask one of the servants to draw a bath of hot water. She would have to wait for morning.

If Patriarch's world had done one thing right, it had been the convenience of indoor plumbing.

She reached for her bracelets pulling them off and setting them on the table before moving to unclasp her armor.

"You may want to keep that on for now."

The meta almost screamed as she jumped.

Turning right around, one hand pressed against her pounding heart she glared at the shadowed corner.

One angrily grabbed candle later she was staring at Bruce's masked face, the smallest, upturn of his lips belying his own self satisfaction at having scared her.

"Damn it Bruce!" She yelled. "One of these days I'm just going to throw something at you...And I wont miss." She added as an afterthought.

Bruce nodded. "Looking forward to it."

With a resigned sigh she sets herself down on the bed, rubbing her aching forehead. "What do you want Bruce?"

He stood, the vague hint of a smile, vanishing completely. "Before we left to get the other two pieces of the armor, I had Alfred program the Bat computer to run a search. He just transferred back the results."

She raised an eyebrow standing before the two began to walk to the balcony.

"What was the search about?"

"Fate claims Hades is coming, the end of days. I thought there should be some effects, a build up. So I asked Alfred to search weather patterns and other strange events a year before and after Hades showed up the first time, and compare them to now and the two years in between."

"And? Wha'd you find?" She leaned on the balcony rail looking slightly up at him as he still stood ramrod straight.

"The patterns match." He said simply. "I wont bore you with the details but what little evidence we could find, what Fate says is true. Hades is coming back."

"So the Herald will be needed after all." She said, almost to herself, resigned. "And you knew I, like you, wanted more than just Fate's word on this so you decided to share it with me. " She smiled knowingly as he dutifully avoided her gaze, staring out towards the foamy waves of the ocean as they lapped at the shore.

"I'll be telling the others when they get back."

"Where did you send them?"

"What makes you so sure I sent them anywhere?"

She smiled looking at him as though to say _It's you we're talking about here._

Almost begrudgingly he answered. "They're tying up some loose ends. They'll be back by tomorrow."

She nodded then turned back to look out over the black sheet of shimmering glass that was the ocean; waiting for the question she knew was coming.

For a long time Bruce didn't say anything merely stood silently beside her.

"You intend to be..."

"Yes."

"Will it kill you?" He asked after another long silence.

"I have the greatest chance of surviving the-"

"Will it kill you...princess."

She sighed through her nostrils. "Herald or not, there's always been a chance of that Bruce."

He didn't say anything, and she could almost feel his scowl as his gaze bore into the back of her head.

"I'll do it then."

She whirled around so fast she almost tripped over her own feet. "What!"

"Let me become the Avatar."

"Are you insane, I at least have a chance at surviving you'll be killed for sure!"

"The world needs Wonder Woman, more than it needs Batman."

She almost forgot to check how much strength she put into the slap she gave him.

"You..." Her tongue twisted in her mouth as words tripped over themselves to be spoken first. "You stupid, self...urgh, Man!"

"Eloquent." He quipped in response ignoring the ache in his jaw.

She pushed herself off the balcony back towards the room. She was too tempted to do much more damage than a simple slap to stay too close to him.

"Princess!" His voice made her stop and she whirled right back around to face him.

"You ever make another suggestion like that Bruce and you'll wish it was Kal-El you were in a fist fight with."

"Lets face facts princess." He said, his voice carefully neutral. "In our world you're a public figurehead. An inspiration for millions your endorsements and charities probably save more people in one day than I will manage to save in six months. I'm an urban legend. I fall off the grid, a year or two passes, Dick takes my place, or Tim. And Batman never left. You fall off the grid, everyone will know and all those people you tried to help, all those you did help, it'll all come unraveled."

Making a vague gesture beyond the balcony with his hand he continued. "Not to mention your people here. If your mother dies, they need you to be here for them. Batman's expendable, Wonder Woman is irreplaceable."

"There is more to you than Batman, Bruce!" She shouted her voice more fierce than she'd heard it in a long time. "I just wish you could see it like...like all of us do."

The silence was thick between them for what felt like an eternity, the two willful heroes staring at each other and she could tell Bruce was tempted to continue arguing, to hammer away at her defenses until she finally caved or he found some way to go around her word to protect her anyway.

But she wouldn't cave, and she wouldn't be moved from this.

A small window of eternity passed by before Bruce finally spoke.

"You need to survive this Princess."

She walked forward, marching close enough to place her hands on his shoulders.

"You're a good man Bruce." She said her head lowering. "You just need to learn that you cant protect everyone."

He seemed to nod, and she slid her hands off of his shoulders.

"Get some sleep princess." He said eventually turning towards the balcony. "I'll be here when you wake up."

She smiled, easily understanding what he wanted to say. _'I'll always be here'_

It was as close to an apology as she would get.

"Thank you Bruce."

With a nod he leaped off the balcony rail, her ears picking up the whooshing of his cape as it caught the wind to slow his fall a moment later.


	11. Chapter 11

Clark had never been superstitious. His parents were, to be sure, but they'd never really instilled any fear of black cats, ladders or broken mirrors in him.

And though he'd seen a lot of things in his life so far which would fall under the category of "Supernatural", he himself being able to _loosely_ fall into that criteria as well, he'd never really believed in any higher power, or in good luck or bad luck. He might have blamed Bruce's influence for his lack of faith, but he really didn't want to give his friend more credit to stroke his ego.

Still, even he had to admit that there was something...very eerie about the shrine of Ares right now.

It was almost noon, the sun was high in the sky outside but the light could barely pierce the gloom provided by incense smoke, tree canopies and blood red colored drapes that hung from the ceiling.

The chanting of the acolytes and high priestess wasn't exactly lending a much needed crutch to the room's cheerfulness either. In fact, Kent could almost swear he'd heard this chant in a movie once; Right before the people conducting the ritual summoned a blood crazed demon that slaughtered them all.

Hell, four amazonian were even holding a hog tied bull down on the side of the chamber, keening moans, giving the impression that the animal knew what was coming and was subsequently begging for its life.

As far as he was concerned these were not the makings of a good day.

Zatanna and Kara seemed to share his trepidation, with the former pacing along one corner of the room biting her lip while throwing occasional glances at the other occupants and then returning right back to her pacing, and the latter was almost glued to the side of the door, thoroughly creeped out and unwilling to enter any more than necessary.

In contrast to them, Bruce and Fate seemed utterly indifferent to the proceedings. Both standing stoically to the side, shoulder to shoulder. Clark was sure the only reason Bruce was standing next to the arrogant, spell flinging mage was to speak during, or just before the ritual reached its conclusion, or punch him, hard, if anything went wrong. Either one was equally plausible.

As for Diana, she knelt in the first placing, right before the statue, the head priestess at her side; the acolytes fanning out behind them. Since she would be the...host (he absolutely refused to think of the word sacrifice) it was ritual for her to be presented to Ares first.

Dressed in white garbs, a sword and shield at her side, Dianna did look every bit the warrior princess as she knelt there, whispering a litany in low, low tones, in stark difference to the ominous, loud voices of her acolyte sisters that reverberated through the chamber

To add to the cacophony of this, his sensitive hearing could pick up the warriors, dressed in full battle gear, slamming spear against shield just a few hundred feet away as they too sang their own hymns, surrounding the temple in perfect formation.

All of these things, only served to make this whole thing a cauldron of chaos symphonic chaos.

Which was fitting really.

This was the War god after all.

"Tell me something."

Fate turned his helmet a fraction, finding Bruce from the corner of his eye.

"What exactly will you do if this goes wrong?"

"It wont."

Bruce glared, the lenses of his cowl glinting with the flickering torchlight.

Fate was not intimidated, but decided to answer regardless. "I will still fight. I will not roll onto my back and wait for death to take me peacefully.

There was a moment of silence before Bruce spoke up again.

"Just what can we expect here?"

"Ares-" Fate answered calmly. "Is the god of war. You may expect wrath, you will feel the compulsion to fight within your mind, to shed blood and kill. It will not be overpowering however unless you let it be. No God can hold a grudge longer, nor as bitterly as he. Save perhaps, Hera. And he has reasons to be bitter towards the amazons who spurned his..._generosity. _But he will accept the deal, if only to hurt the Amazons later."

Beneath the shield that was his cape, draped over his shoulders, Bruce felt himself stiffen, his jaw tightening.

"What are her chances of surviving?"

"Slim." The sorcerer answered truthfully. "But there are more gods that have invested their gifts in the princess, Athena, Hera, Artemis, Hermes Hephaestus. Ares is bold and rash, but he is no fool. He may decide to let her live. Athena he loathes, Artemis and Hermes he cares little for. But Hephaestus forges his weapons, and Hera is his mother. Those he may not risk angering. The princess should hope that, in the end, his fear of those two turns out to be greater than his hatred for Athena."

"Then why would he agree at all, if he cannot kill her and hurt the Amazons."

"If the earth falls to Hades, the lord of the underworld will threaten Olympus next."

"One god against a myriad of others?"

"His power would grow by then, most likely. Sacrifices and souls he would consume and brought down to the underworld would fuel him. He is already stronger than all gods save his brothers, he will only get stronger by emerging from the Nether-realms."

"You should hope that she lives through this Fate." Bruce finally said after a moment.

Somewhat caught off guard by the statement, Fate turned his head to fully look at the black clad Hero. "And why is that?" He asked, with genuine curiosity.

"Because." The Dark Knight answered meeting the powerful magician's gaze with unnerving intensity. "If she doesn't, I'll be coming after you when its over."

Fate found himself brought up short at these words, uncertain weather the mortal was incredibly stupid, incredibly brave, or both.

In his long, long life he had defied Gods and Demons, creatures that could topple entire worlds through the mere breath of their power.

But never had he been threatened by one as...insignificant as one human.

And yet, the Sorcerer knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the human very well could, and would, go through with this threat.

Before anything more could be said between the two, the sudden sound of a blade slicing through meat, followed shortly by spilled blood landing on the floor brought their attention forward.

The hog tied bull kicked and thrashed, its lifesblood spilling over the floor, trailing down through a carved grove in the floor towards the foot of the statue as the bull gave its last few twitches, the Amazonians holding it down, speckled with its' warm blood.

Bruce and the others watched as the high priestess, chanting out her greek hyms brought the tip of a long, manicured fingernail down to where the blood had pooled before her and Diana.

No one needed super hearing to catch Kara's sharp breath as the white robed woman brought that same, blood soaked fingernail up towards diana and began to draw.

Bruce couldn't see what was drawn on Diana's forehead, but soon enough, from her profile he saw the woman draw what he could...vaguely recognize as the head of a wolf, or a dog, either would fit Ares, as both animals were frequent carrion eaters on the battle fields of ancient Grece.

The woman drew one more symbol on Diana's other cheek and the chanting picked up a bit, reaching a crescendo in the confines of the room.

The billionaire looked to the side of the room, where the candles hung from their plinths. He could almost swear the flames were growing in size.

Then, just as he was thinking this, those same flames were suddenly snuffed out, and instantly, the room descended into darkness as the chanting ceased.

Bruce felt it soon after. It slithered up his spine with a thousand pin pricks, climbing up like a worm and spreading out through his skull, like roots slowly snaking their way through stone and concrete.

He grit his teeth, one lip curling up as his logic driven mind abhorred the very notion that anyone had access to his mind.

The laughter was slow, filling the room like the crash of rolling thunder, and Bruce saw the eyes beneath the statues finely crafted helm, light up, a dark bloody red mist seeping through the helmet's vizor eye slits.

"_**And so the gate is unlatched, the keystones pushed aside, convictions falter and offer their boon, for thou to receive a gift on high."**_

It laughed, whatever it was, it was laughing. Bruce, and all others could feel it, and its laughter was a cruel thing that made his skin crawl beneath his armor. It spoke in greek, but there was no need for translation to the others in order to detect and feel the malevolence in his words.

It was the head priestess that spoke then, her voice firm and showing none of the unease or hesitation Bruce and some others had expected.

"_God Ares, son of Zeus, we, the children of Amazonia beckon your aid once more."_

"_**Then thou beckons foolishly."**_ The voice said, rippling out of the massive statue to reach across the room.

"_Lord Ares." _The priestess continued, bowing her head. _"What we ask-"_

"_**What thou asks, is willful ignorance. What thou asks, is for I to willfully forget, the insult given before your exodus. Thou asks for thine debt to this one, to remain unfulfilled."**_

"Debt?" Bruce asked softly, tilting his head a fraction of an inch towards Fate.

"Athens, the Amazons never destroyed it as was Ares Comand."

"He would ask that of them now!" The dark knight hissed.

"No." Fate assured. "He would not so blatantly go against his mother's will that Amazonian influence on the mortal world be limited now. But he does call in this debt."

"So what? Now he can ask for more than one sacrifice?"

"It is..." Fate hesitated with a slow now. "A distinct possibility."

"_What would you ask of us?" The priestess said, wary and more than a little uncertain._

"_**You speak wrongly. What I would ask, is where is your pride? What I would ask, is where is your fighting spirit? What I would ask, is why, the greatest of my warriors sit here on this spit of dirt, the fabric of which is held together by the threads of magic and frail illusion rather than hone their skills in battle, unbound. To prove themselves, once again, the mightiest of warriors." **_Throughout his speech the people in the room could feel the weight of his voice descending on them, pressing harsher and harsher upon their shoulders like some invisible weight.

"_**What I demand, is something else entirely."**_

The priestess visibly hesitated before she spoke in Greek. "_Then what is it you would demand of us, lord Hades?"_

"_**I would demand your proper place in submission. And the life which will be due to me for my aid to you in this coming battle."**_

They'd been skirting around the subject, to hear the war god openly voice it now, was shocking enough that it stilled them all.

His laughter came again, still with that mocking lilt.

"_Enough of this."_

The princess felt all eyes on her, even the ethereal red of the war god's Avatar.

She stood, pooled white robes falling straight around her through the pull of gravity as she reached her full height. Reaching down to her ankles she tilted her head back, looking up with defiance at the statue.

"_**The princess...Thou would do well to hold thine tongue."**_

"_Or what?" _She snarled back, and Batman could hear fate curse softly under his breath, barely held into the confines of his helmet.

He found himself smiling.

"_**Do not think that thou favor with my mother grants thou any protection here, half blood-"**_

"_You need to be here Ares." _She said, cutting him off. _"None of the Gods wish for Hades to be released especially not your father. And Zeus knows that you are our only option. And so he has charged you to be here." _She glared at the statue, her lip curling up in distaste, showing as much hatred as she trully felt towards the God of war. _"You cannot leave us, no more than we can leave you now. So cease your gloating, false bravado and child worthy remarks and let us be finished with this charade of cooperation."_

The silence was an almost palpable thing now, and even Kara and Clark could tell that whatever Diana had said in her native greek had not exactly been the most polite of things that could be said.

When the fires berthed in the braziers flanking the chamber, roared to impossible proportions it only served to cement that notion.

The shockwave that threw everyone save the princess herself into the solid stone walls helped too.

As for Diana, Bruce and the others watched as she was visibly lifted into the air. This wasnt flying, they'd all seen her fly enough to be able to tell the difference here. She was being held by something, carried up until her small body was level with the statues massive helm.

Diana felt something fall onto her hand, her fingers curling around it against her will as she sneered, lips curling back in distaste as she stared at the God of war with defiance that matched his tangible hatred.

"_**Know this, child of my enemy; I offer no forgiveness and no respite. When your end comes, and believe me, it will come soon enough, I will make certain of your suffering. I will see your eyes clouded without life, your corpse bloated with parasites and your skull will adorn my throne room. This is what will await you my Herald. Know your fate, now that, as you say, we may end this charade of cooperation."**_

As quickly as it had come, the malicious presence vanished, leaving the amazons and others in the chamber glancing at one another with nervous apprehension.

But soon enough, all eyes went to the Princess as she floated down from where she'd been raised, white robes catching in the wind of her descent.

The Wailing Doom clutched firmly in her hand, glinting in the firelight as though it'd been forged of flame itself.

Bruce and the others felt their hearts grow a little heavier at the sight.

When she turned around, her eyes found Fate's immediately, and the sorcerer vissibly straightened before she spoke to him.

"How much time do we have Sorcerer?"

Fate bowed his head, perhaps in submission, perhaps in contemplation.

"Two days, if I am any judge. The veil is thin now."

And just like that, with a calm that both impressed and unnerved him, Bruce saw her turn towards the nearest warrior Amazon. "Inform Phillipus and Artemis _Zeurkevwut to otpaut_"

The warrior bowed once, and left the room with all due haste.

As the head priestess stoodand walked over to Diana Bruce turned away and walked towards Clark, who still stood by the doorway looking a little shell shocked.

"Call J'hon." He said, standing right at the man's side, voice soft enough so that the conversation would stay mostly between him and the smallville raised alien. He cant guarantee Kara doesn't hear him. "Tell him to update Flash and Lantern. We may need more backup."

"More?" The Kriptonian questions.

Bruce nods, though he doesn't clarify on Diana's words to the soldier.

He'd heard her clear as day and didn't feel to spread his unease just yet. They'd understand it soon enough.

"_Assemble the Army"_

* * *

Well here ya go, hope you all enjoyed it for what it was worth. Quick chapter, laying the groundwork for the next ones, hope to write those up soon enough.

Read and review


	12. Chapter 12

**Abkhazia, Gagra district, just outside of Voronja cave formation.**

The computer readouts scrolled past his face, lines forming peaks and valleys in a dizzying zig zag. He licked his lips rubbing his forehead to stave off the headache he could already feel coming on.

He picked up the radio, prepared to shout himself hoarse again to the stubborn bastard on the other end. "George!"

"Yea what is it Don?" Came the voice from the other end soon after as George left the computer readings and walked towards the monitor getting the camera feeds attached to George's helmet.

"Get up here ya git. For the hundreth time these seismic readings are getting worse by the bloody hour!"

"For the hundredth and first time check your god-damned sensors again mate. There's nothing goin' on down here, the team and I have felt nothing that would give you a bloody seven point three.

"Eight point four now ya git!" The spotter yelled as he stood up and went to the computers again, hands flying over the keyboard. "And its not just the seismographs on the spike, its everything, Sonar, Ultrasound! Everything is givin me odd signs!"

"Then check your-"

"**I've checked it four times now ya' fuckn' cunt!**" He screamed, his throat itching again with familiar pain before he calmed himself down. "Now, you listen to me you...thrill seeking protestant jackass." He bit out the words through his teeth. "You get James, and you get Kelly and you get your waste of space selve's back up here, now!"

He heard a sigh through the radio. Then finally.

"You really want to do this Don?" George Asked, the tone of his voice showing that he'd finally relented. "We may not be able to get passes to get across the borders here next time."

"We'll get the goddamn passes eventually. If not this year, next year or the following one. But I cant bring my team back to life if you all die down there from a flash flood or a bloody earthquake."

"Alright, look, I'll tell you what, we'll head up first thing in the morning Don."

"You should head up now." The spotter protested.

"Me and Kel have been up and down these damned tunnels all day, we go now we'll be damn exhausted. You may not loose one of us to your magical flashflood or earthquake but through a stupid mistake brought on by no sleep. We'll head up first thing in the morning."

"First. Thing. George!" Don said almost spitting over the radio's mouthpiece.

"Right right." the diver replied before pointedly cutting off the line.

* * *

When John Stewart flew into the watchtower, the aura of his power ring allowing him to make his way straight from earth without the use of a Javelin, he couldn't help but stop for a good ten seconds outside the main hangar's airlock force field, staring, almost stupidly he would admit, at the fully armored and armed battalion of Amazonian women that were currently occupying it.

He decided to take the secondary hangar to enter.

Reaching the Watchtower's command center, though not without passing more than a few amazonian glares through the hallways in the process, he wasn't _too_ surprised to see the entire team there, plus a few that he didn't recognize. Apparently Batman wasn't exactly being fussy about outsiders on the watchtowers this time...outsiders that..._technically _ counted as civilians.

That told John one of two things.

Either Batman was in a _marvelous_ mood.

Or whatever they were facing was big enough for him to warrant their presence.

He hopped for the former but knew that there was ah, ohh...90 percent probability that it was the latter.

Why could they never have a normal weekend?

Still, tightening his jaw and squaring his shoulders the Green Lantern walked forward, watching as J'hon and Batman clicked away at some keyboards.

"So what's the story?" He asked, and stepped back as Flash blurred right infront of his face.

"Ok, here's the thing. Remember Hades? Big, bad, ugly, with a rat face and big booming voice that yelled '**Nooooooo**' all dramatically when we threw him back into the gates of hell?"

"Rings a bell." John answered.

"Well, Big and ugly is coming back, but this time he's got friends see and, Goldenrod over here" He pointed to one of the people John didn't recognize, with a gold helmet and blue clothes. "Is gonna make a ritual to send him back, this time for good. We're just waiting up here for the scanners to pick up some signals And the amazons are here to follow Dianna, who's gonna summon this Herald thing and kick Hades a-"

His voice stopped but his mouth kept moving for a moment until he realized he couldn't speak. His head snapped this way and that way, mouth moving frantically while his hands rubbed at his throat, all in silence as panic began to set in.

It would have been funny to John really, if not for the fact that he was a little unnerved by the bizarre spectacle himself.

"Your voice is irritating." The helmeted one said, sparing them barely a glance.

With everyone's attention directed at Flash no one noticed the frown that creased Superman's lips before he spoke. "Bruce, can I talk to you?"

"I'm busy Kent." He answered curtly.

"Now, Bruce!"

It was rare for Clark to grow a backbone to him infront of others, and the surprise showed well enough in the faces of those around them before the Dark Knight pushed himself away from the console and walked off with the Man of Steel.

When they were far enough away that he was certain none of the others would hear him Clark turned to his long time friend.

"They need to be told."

"No." Bruce answered simply.

"If this might be Diana's last day alive Bruce, then Lantern, Flash and J'hon have the right to say goodbye."

"You don't come to someone, hours away from a fight just to tell them that a friend of theirs has a low probability of surviving the battle."

"It isn't right and you know it Bruce!"

Jerking his head towards where they'd left the group, the billionaire's tone was steel. "Go on then; tell them. Tell them so that all of them can walk in there distracted. So that Flash has his wits so far in the clouds his feet wont touch the ground until his head's been cut off. Or so that John can go in there, frustrated and pissed. The only one who might be able to compartmentalize on this short notice is J'hon; if he hasn't read our minds already."

The Man of steel bit the inside of his cheek glaring at Bruce all the more because he was simply right.

But Bruce wouldn't stop here, not yet. The situation needed to be made clear for Clark, and it needed to be made clear _now_.

"Or maybe they'll all go to Diana like you want. They'll say their goodbyes, all tearful farewells and whatnot so that Diana can walk into that field resigned and ready for death. That sounds like a brilliant idea now that you mention it Clark. Maybe I should go and tell her I've made all the funeral arrangements as well and have her pick out the wood of her casket."

"Alright you've made your point." The Smallville raised alien said between his teeth, closing his eyes as he stopped Bruce before he really got started.

Message delivered, The Dark knight went to leave when the alarm sounded through the facility, ringing like a kalxon the two heroes quickly ran towards the operations chamber.

"What's happening?"

"Our sensors have picked something up. Gargra district of Georgia, north east of the black sea!" J'hon said, his hands flying over the keyboard as the images zoomed in, and a pulsing red dot appeared over a topographical map.

"Where the heck is that?"

"The Kubera cave formation." Batman answered flash quickly. "Deepest cave in the world."

"Symbolism holds great meaning to the Gods." Fate said. "It was my failing to not have deduced this."

"No point in complaining about it now." John said before he began to fly towards the hangar, others following as they heard J'hon call to their retreating forms.

"I will program our satellites accordingly, then I will join you."

Bruce's features soured. If only they'd had a few more months, the Watchtower's weapon would be completed and they could bomb these people from orbit.

Flying down the hallway, Clark wasted no time directing everyone.

"Kara, Fate you're with me on Javelin one, Bruce go with Zatanna to Javelin two, Flash, Diana, you've got Javelin three, J'hon will take Javelin four. GL we need your Ring, you're transporting whatever Amazon's we cant fit on the Javelins!"

"How many would that be?" the former marine asked.

"Two hundred and seventy eight." Bruce answered quickly.

"Son of a-"

"They'll be in supply hold eight."

"Why the supply hold?"

"Big enough to hold all of them, and its one of the few places that can open straight into space without a void-shield in place.

"Right" Stewart said before swiftly turning down a hallway that would take him down to the hold the fastest.

* * *

"So Don want's us back up there in the morning?" Kelly asked again for what must have been the fifth time, half of her stuffed into a sleeping bag while the other half was still exposed to the damp air.

George shrugged, fiddling with some piece of machinery or other. The expression on his face showed just what he thought of Don's wishes too.

"That's bullshit!" The Irish girl said, loud enough for her voice to bounce off the walls. "We worked for eight months to get these permits and now he just wants to piss em away?"

"Don't yell at me." George said before she could really get started. "Yell at him when you get back up there."

Her arms fell limp at her side and she shook her head as she stared off to some point along the cave wall. "Bullshit." She repeated. "Jimmy, tell em' this is bullshit!" She yelled at their resident techie who was fiddling with the diving camera, perched on a nearby rock.

"Its bullshit." He said, though with little real enthusiasm. Likely he was more afraid that the red blooded Irish woman would hurt him if he didn't agree.

"Well aren't you a big help." She groused.

"What I'm here for." James answered smiling, though he never removed his eyes from his work.

George was about to sit down to make up his own sleeping bag when a sound ripples through the air. Once or twice at first, but then a constant chittering. Like hundreds of insects crawling around them.

"What in Christ is that?" Kelly asks. Not really expecting an answer.

George reached into his equipment pack, lighting up a massive flashlight that looked more like a box than anything hand held.

The shaft of light ripped through the darkness and the three cave divers peered into the gloom.

* * *

The Javelins punched through the atmosphere like comets, three blazing hot trails streaking through the night sky as jet engines whined with fiery output.

Bruce clicked away at keys and nobs, adjusting from the void flight to gravity subjected, in seconds as the engines increased their pitch and the metal floors vibrated beneath their feet.

Zatanna smiled as she watched the collection of thirty or fourty odd warrior women tense at the sensation, gripping at their weapons, shifting from foot to foot and muttering small sounds of distress.

She couldn't help it.

"Don't worry. He's a great pilot, he's only crashed twice while doing this, I promise."

Their distress was visible and audible now. One woman looked like she was actually going to be ill.

She chuckled, and her humor even survived Bruce's scalding glare from his place in the pilot seat.

She smiled. "What? I'm helping!" She said with mock indignity. "Between the Batplane and this thing, you have crashed more than twice. I didn't even mention your speeding tickets. Or that one parking violation they gave you once."

She almost started to guffaw at _that _particular memory.

The plane lurched forward in a burst of speed that had the women in the hold howling at anything and everything. And slammed her back into her seat with a laugh.

Waters sparkled like a sheet of diamonds on a black canvas, mountains rose like humpbacked giants in the distance as they neared closer and closer.

Zatanna felt it then, just there, at the edge of her witch sight, a scratch at her mind, scratching and scratching, more insistent.

The radio cracked and Superman's voice drifted through, laced with static.

"_Batman, Fate says to touch down here."_

"We're five miles from the cave formation."

This time, it was Fate's voice that spoke to them. Paused and measured, as though he was speaking while trying to retain focus on some other task. _"No...here. Old magic...old wards...centuries ancient. Here is where we must make our stand."_

He was right, she could feel it too. Old, powerful magic clung to this place like the scent of a rooms' resident clung to the room. Old magic, strong wards, powerful spells woven into the very fabric of the earth.

Someone had placed them here...someone had left these here for them...for now.

Dianna spoke up at that point. _"GPS says that there is a village nearby on a high mountain-rise. It provides the most strategic position I can see anywhere near here."_

Bruce looked as though he was going to argue some more when she placed her hand on his forearm, shaking her head. "Do as he says."

His lips thinned, but soon enough he fell into formation with the rest of the league Javelins and descended to the village.

* * *

Don woke to a wild shriek in the night, jerking out of bed in a tangle of blankets that left him sprawled, face down in the dirt.

He scrambled to his feet, fumbling, stumbling, reaching, grasping, his body slammed into the table holding the radio receivers where _noises_ came out of the speakers, such strange, _horrible _noises they were chilling the blood in his veins.

"George! George!" He fiddled through their frequencies, barely screaming a word before switching to the other. "Kelly! Jimmy? George? Jimmy! Answer me dammit!"

But the line was dead, and rain began to fall outside the tent, peppering the plastic before he threw the mike on the table in frustration.

He threw on his coat, and with a zip the tent was opened and he was walking out into the sudden downpour.

He took two steps, before his feet were frozen to the ground.

The entrance to the cave, a gaping maw that dropped straight into the earth for miles was glowing.

Purple energies washed over the edges, like milk just a drop away from overflowing in a cup, fuschia and fiery red washed over his face, lighting up the night like the forth of July.

"Wha-"

Then, like a beast waking from a slumber he heard the rumble, felt the shake beneath his feet, and into his gaping mouth a drop of rain fell and he spat it out at the horrid taste, choking on bitter metal. He wiped it on his sleeve, harshly tugging the fabric away before his eyes found a splotch of black red on the bright green fabric.

_'Is...is that?'_

The ground split beneath his feet, as though God himself had thrust a fist down and shattered the earth in two. Don screamed, terror and adrenalin making his heart lurch in his chest before he lunged to one side, wet earth cradled his body with grit and bitter taste as he stumbled wildly back to his feet.

He stood in the eye of the storm, earth and sky, the very fabric of reality were being torn in two. Don looked left and right up and down, a wild panic seizing his body as he struggled to find out what he should do.

He looked to the light, the terrible, dark light at the cave and felt fear rising like bile in his throat. It rippled and moved, shifted and rose.

By the time he realized something was happening there was no more time.

Don did not even have the time to scream as the very fabric of reality was ripped open before his eyes.

* * *

Bruce looked to the heavens above. The sky rumbled with thunder, and the rain that was beginning to fall was bitter and stung his eyes like ash, there was a hellish hue seeping into the air around them, and he could almost swear that it was not merely rain falling over them now, but some unearthly fluid to herald what was coming.

"The doorway is opening." He heard Fate say behind him. "The veil between the dimensions is...thinning...torn in places, can you feel it?"

No. No he couldn't; not really. But he could see it well enough. He'd never seen the sky like this, it seemed as though the seams that made up the sky, that made up the atmosphere were being dissolved, and the energies of Hades realm dripped, oozed and flowed through the serrations.

He looked back to the village where the villagers were being forced into the Javelin fighters. Some struggled and cursed in their language, some even tried to resist, but all those that got too rowdy were quickly grabbed by Clark, who could take as many punches kicks as needed before tossing them into the cargo holds.

There were few of those so far though, most were terrified elderly and children, much too frightened to think of fleeing when nearly four hundred strong women in bronze armor and a plethora of world famous heroes dropped right in on them.

Some children pointed in wonder or recognition. Perhaps they'd serve to calm these people down. Perhaps they wouldn't.

He reached up, activating the communications. "J'hon, report."

"Our satellites are saying that the anomalous signals are spreading out from the point of origin, at a rate of forty miles per-hour in all directions." I will reach your location in three more minutes, the anomaly in twelve."

"How long before they hit any other population centers?"

"If it continues constant at their current rate they will reach the nearest city in approximately one hundred and twenty-five minutes. The villages between in less than an hour.

Bruce felt his lips tighten and thin. He did not like the sound of that at all.

The rain was hissing now, charged with stuff unaccustomed to the viscosity of the air, and the laws of gravity, mutant rain that lashed down onto the village where they would make their stand.

He turned looking over the village and the small overhead map that blinked to existence behind his cowl's helmet lens.

The village was almost like an overturned amphitheater. Huts and sheds made of clay and red earth, topped with sheets of tin or hay were tiered from the mountain's peak down below. Almost like an upside down cone. At the very top, a Church capped the mountain.

The village had one road for cars enter and leave, but he doubted that whatever these things were they'd just funnel themselves into it.

"Fate, Lantern, Zatanna." He barked.

The latter two come quickly, as does the former, albeit at a more sedate pace.

"Yea?" John asks.

"We need a wall." He says simply before gesturing around him. "A dead cow can walk into this place."

The marine nodded. "I hear ya. If I make this wall though around the village, there aint' gonna be much more I can do while holding it up. This will probably be like six hundred feet all around and they're gonna hit it with something I'll bet, so it'll take a lot of energy, and a lot of concentration.

Bruce didn't like that option very much. GL was a heavy hitter, his power ring could cause a lot of damage when they didn't have to worry about holding back.

It wasn't a good option but it was still an option.

"My magic will be used for the ritual." Fate intoned. "And nothing more. Hades cannot sense me until he is here, and the ritual is already underway. Otherwise everything here will be for nothing."

What they could see of his face must have been curled back in a sneer, displaying his thoughts. _Useless._

It was up to Zatanna. "I think I might be able to do something...give me a sec."

She ran up the mountain, trailing off to their right where she reached the first "row" of houses.

The three men watched her, curious.

They heard her speak, the exact words caught in the wind before it reached their ears. She thrust her arms forward.

Spikes of twisted rock suddenly sprang from the earth, rumbling and snapping with teeth rattling force that shook Bruce's ribs in his chest. They jutted out like spear-points, tips of blades forming a jagged row of black barricades. Buttresses of obsidian stone that seemed razor sharp to the touch, small as a broom stick in one instance then as large as Athena's statue on Paradise island in the next

Zatanna didn't wait for confirmation rushing to the other side of the road and doing the same.

Bruce nodded. Still too little though.

He called her back with a wave of his hand, waiting for her to approach before speaking. "Good, do it all around the whole village, and bring it higher along the mountain, right under the first row of houses if you have to. Once you've surrounded the entire village spread out as much as you can. The more obstructions you put in their way the better." He thought for a moment, looking around his own feet. "In fact, block the road as well. Our job here is purely defensive in nature."

She mock saluted before turning to Green Lantern. "Mind giving me a ride? It beats running."

John nodded before wrapping her in a bubble and flying off to prepare the defenses.

Batman ignored Fate, pushing past him and towards where the Amazonians were gathered alongside Clark, Dianna, Kara and Flash.

Bruce wasted no time. "Head east, scout them out, tell us what we can expect and how many. Do _not_ fight."

The scarlet speedster nodded. "Piece of cake." And then he was gone.

Batman looked to the holograph map set up on the floor, and was grateful that the Amazons werent poking and prodding at it, their minds was on the up coming battle.

With little preamble or askance he dove right into what he did best.

"Fate, where will your ritual be taking place?" He asked.

Fate pointed at the Church. "There. I sense...strong magics beneath the stone, in the foundations. It will serve well as a focus."

The Dark Knight nodded. "They're approaching from the east. "How many amazons do we have exactly." He asked and it was Artemis who answered.

"Four hundred, thirty and six."

He nodded. "Then I want your best two-hundred, on the eastern side of the village. Two hundred more on the north and south. The last thirty six will be spread thin along the western side if they mannage to surround us." He paused, thinking for another moment. GL and Kara will be on the west side in that case. Clark, Zatanna and J'hon when he arrives will take the eastern front. I'll take the north, Flash the south when he gets back.

They each nodded, and though some of the Amazonian commanders were wondering why it was he giving orders rather than Superman or their princess, they did not say anything.

There was silence between them for a moment before he spoke. "What are you all still standing around for?"

That got them moving and Bruce watched them all go, eyes following for a moment before finally settling on Dianna herself as she walked up to one of the higher houses on the hill.

Three Amazonian priestesses trailed behind her, the only three non combatants on this mission.

Fate stepped into the place of worship, footsteps falling onto dry granite. Grey dust billowed across his feet with the wind that flew in through the windows. Only hard, stone benches lined the interior, empty, the hollowed building giving eerie howls with the force of the wind.

"Yes..." He said to himself, eyes sweeping across the structure, his witchsight piercing earth, rock shadow and wards to what lay beneath.

With a wave of his hand, the roof was blown aside as though suddenly ripped away by a typhoon. Stone walls crumbled at the touch of his fingers and went rolling down the muddy mountain. The stone benches lifted themselves and were cast away, leaving only Fate standing on the stone floor, and the rain to fall onto his body as he placed himself in the center.

* * *

Flash zipped across the countryside, mountains, and hills zooming beneath his feet as he made a beeline eastward.

He was beginning to wonder just what the hell J'hon's satellites may have picked up when he finally climbed over the rise of another hill.

"Shit" he cursed, stopping dead and then turning right around to run in the other direction, scything talons and babbling screams trailing behind him. He looked back, running just fast enough to keep ahead of the horde and felt his skin crawling at the sight of them.

It was like someone had taken a mass of_ things_ chewed them up and then spat it back out.

They were hideous, short and squat in one second, with heads pressed down to their shoulders, and then tall and slender in the next. One hissed, running on all fours with a mouth so big it could have swallowed him whole. Another stumbled, slower than the rest, he caught only the look of raw muscle, as though his skin had been peeled right off his body before he was lost amidst the faster creatures.

Some had multiple limbs, or ones that didn't fit on their body, either too low on one side or one arm was too big while the other looked so delicate it wouldn't be able to pick up a piece of paper.

Weapons sprouted from some of them, bloody viscera lining the area where skin met rust crusted steel. Wounds were carved into their bodies, symbols made with bloody injuries that he couldn't recognize. Some seemed almost human, while others barely resembled anything that he could say looked remotely like anything that's come from earth.

Wally decided he'd seen enough, with a burst of speed, he put some temporary distance between himself and these things.

* * *

She stood on a raised part of the home, the three weapons held there infront of her by the silent sisters. Priestesses who were charged with carrying these three terrible artifacts until it was time for their use. Never speaking, never moving, they waited with outstretched arms for their Princesses' convenience.

Her hands were at her sides, her head held high, eyes closed delicately as her lips moved in quiet prayer. She'd been dressed in the ceremonial silks that befitted the role she was about to take upon herself. The Armor of Hephaestus was a different treasure to the Amazons, to be worn by their champion. Now she was the herald of Ares. A different role, a different power. Should she survive, she would take the armor again.

If. She. Survived.

The only thing that remained of her old armor was the lasso, coiled around her hip. It was the one thing she'd not wanted to part with.

The wind surged through the window, whipping her long black hair behind her. With a red flash of unnatural lightning she was deathly beautiful and with every word that escaped her lips power radiated from the objects, as though they knew their time drew nearer.

"You're loosing your touch." She finally said.

He stepped forward, a frown on his face as he slipped from the shadows. A bolt of red lightning forked across the sky and only somewhere distant did his mind note that as something decidedly abnormal. He had other thoughts more pressing at the moment.

The pieces of armor thrummed, as though each had its own heart, beating in unison with its twins.

She turned, looking over her shoulder at him and Bruce saw the ghost of her smile. "You know...I thought this was our last resort plan."

_'It was._' he wanted to say. _'It was but we had no more time. It was but we had no other plan.'_

No time, no alternatives, and too little knowledge to come up with some. They were down to this. To sacrificing her.

He stepped forward, getting closer as he marched up the small array of steps that led to what must have once been the cook room of this house, a stove made of stone with a furnace beneath and a spot to hold the pot over the fire.

A magic ritual to summon the power of Ares was taking place in the middle of some hut's kitchen.

The absurdity was not lost on him.

"Diana-"

"No Bruce." She interrupted. "You can't talk me out of this."

"You'll be fine." He said after a lengthy pause. "You'll do this. And you will be fine."

"Doesn't hurt to be optimistic." She said with another smile.

He raised his hand, bringing it to grip her shoulder when her own hand shot forward, grasping tightly at his wrist.

His eyes narrowed.

Her smile turned brittle.

"It doesn't hurt to know your friends care either." The small needle, no larger than a pin almost glimmered in the cast of the light, shining between his two middle fingers where it'd been poised to deliver its fast acting paralyzing agent.

With a lift and a toss, he was across the room, back slamming against the wall. His air left him, but still he managed to yell out her name as he picked himself off the floor. "Dianna!"

She donned the helmet of farsight as he stood, she flexed the fingers of her left hand within the gauntlet of blood as he rushed across the room, her right hand took hold of the Wailing doom by the time he knew he was too late!

* * *

Flash zoomed into the village, weaving and jumping over stones with a fleet foot that brought him to the center of the village in less than a second.

Almost as fast was Clark, and Kara. "Wha'd you see?" The younger Kryptonian asked, both trepidation and excitement could be seen in her.

She was loud though, so it wasn't long after the others joined them.

"How many are there?" Clark asked before he could answer the first question. "What kind of weaponry can we expect.

"A lot." He answered simply, his tone conveying just how many 'a lot' was. "As for weapons. Anything you can think of that can bludgeon, poke, prod, stab, strike, or cause general pain with blunt force trauma to the head, is most likely in there somewhere."

A Javelin zipped overhead and J'hon fell through the metal of the floors, his body loosing its consistency before re-solidifying. "Flash is correct. Whatever these creatures are, their weapons are primitive. But a sword works as well as a gun at killing once it is close enough. And their numbers are impossible to overcome.

"Just how many are there?" Zatanna asked the question this time, shifting from one foot to the other.

J'hon took a moment. "A lot."

Everyone started when suddenly, at the top of the village the Church was torn down, its ceiling of hay, and wood being ripped away as though it were a childs play thing, the walls crumbling as if the mortar between the stone had rotted and gone brittle.

With their attention on the revealed Fate, only Clark and Kara heard the approach behind them.

Clark paused, eyes narrowing in suspicion, but Kara turned, eyes alight with alien fire before twin beams of red heat were thrown across the night air.

With a sound of screeching metal the lasers met Thanagarian steel. "Easy there girl, you'll hurt yourself."

John turned so fast Clark was certain he'd gotten whiplash, power green eyes wide as he sucked in an all too sharp breath. Clark could hear his heart stop for half a second before resuming its normal pace.

"Shay!" Wally was the first to react, stepping forward as the winged woman's feet touched down on the floor.

"No hugging." The red head snapped, as his intent became obvious. As a hurt puppy look met her stern frown, her face melted into a smile before she stepped forward and offered a very fast one armed hug.

"How are you here Shayera?" Clark asked, noting how Lantern went almost dead still at their side.

Shayera was about to answer when J'hon spoke up in her stead. "Fate called her here. He has been offering her sanctuary since her departure from the league."

"I thought you considered mind reading rude!"

"I do." J'hon said with a small smile. "But when Javelin sensors find you flying towards us when we're about to fight, my curiosity got the better of me."

"I'll forgive you this one time since it saved me the explanation."

Clark smiled he'd never wanted Shayera to leave, though he understood, and respected her reasons for doing so.

It was good to see her well. What's more, it was good to have her back, even if it might be for a short while.

Then, over the hills lining the horizon they surged like an ocean of black. Spilling over the rock and grass like an endless swarm of locusts. His eyes went wide, and behind them he heard the Amazonian captains shout out something in greek. With a resonating clang of spear shafts striking bronze shields Clark knew that this was most definitely going to happen.

The others now saw them too, faces grim and solemn as the Amazons struck their shields again, and again, and again, lined in perfectly rowed battle lines.

"Here they come."

"Alright, everyone get into position." He shouted, forcing himself to be heard over the beating of spear shafts, the hissing of rain and the suddenly too loud atmosphere. "Shay, you're a new addition, so just fly for a while and join whatever battle lines you think may need your help."

They all nodded, and within seconds each of them were going where they were supposed to.

Clark's ears twitched, a shout, so faint at this distance, it was nearly drowned out by the increasing roar of the thunderous footsteps and the rumbling storm over their head that whipped wind so fierce his heavy cape was sent flapping up to the wind.

"_Diana!"_

Clark recognized that voice, but he had no time to react. Not two seconds after he heard it, one of the higher homes erupted.

The light was blinding, soaring straight up into the night sky as bright as any lighthouse on the coast. Brighter even. Its luminescent body lit up the world like it was mid day. Clark clutched his eyes tight, damn near screaming with the shock of the stinging pain over his retinas as he heard the Amazon's roar out a battle cry.

He blinked, struggling to focus his sight for a moment before he could finally bring the world to its proper shade.

And felt his mouth fall open in shock.

It was tall, half again the size of a house, maybe even two full stories, its face was hidden by the helmet, a gilded plate of steel that glowed red hot as its body _burned_. Its very skin crackled with searing flame. Enchanted cloth covered its body, aflame but not burning, even as its footsteps left molten rock beneath its feet.

It stepped out of the rubble of the house, feet sinking into the soft earth of the mountain before it turned to face the approaching horde.

He heard its voice as he had at the temple of Ares on paradise island. An insidious whisper at the back of his mind, a roar at the edge of his conscious thought.

_**'I walk again. A god among the Immortals.'**_

The Amazonian warriors howled to the sky, screaming out their defiance, their acceptance, giving in to the frenzy.

The thing raised its left fist and Clark noticed it dripping with burning blood. It hissed where it struck the earth and smoked with steam wherever the rain came in contact with it.

Clark looked back, behind him, the horde had just reached the first of Zatanna's stone barricades and was beginning to climb over them.

And yet still the seething mass that was the body of this army from the underworld stretched on as far as the eye could see.

There was a teeth grinding snap up the mountain, and Clark's eyes turned again, only to see now the fiery beast had plunged its sword hilt deep into the ground.

An explosion bloomed behind Clark, the shockwave hitting him like a wave at a calm beach, the _boom_ making his ears pop as grit wind, stinking of fire and brimstone washed over him. He flew up, deciding to get to where he himself was supposed to be before he turned fully, only to see that plumes of molten lava had blossomed across the slope of the mountain, burning the screeching, babbling creatures by the hundreds.

_**'Burn them...Burn them all!'**_ He heard

Then Clark remembered, and in an instant his post was abandoned, rushing towards the broken house where his eyes fell onto Bruce and the three silent sisters, sprawled across what little remained of the hut.

"Bruce!" He heard himself say, swooping down and kneeling at his friend's side.

The Dark Knight groaned, clutching at his head as he began to sit up. "_Diana_."

The billionare suddenly stood, lurching to his feet before vaulting over an edge of a broken wall. Stopping where he landed as his eyes fell on the back of the fiery demon that now pulled out its burning sword from the earth.

Clark saw the man's fists clench at his sides, shaking where he stood.

"Batman." He said.

The dark knight swiveled, his upper lip curling back in a sneer. "Get back to the main line." He snapped before stalking off himself

* * *

They clambered and weaved between the rocks, emerging in trickles, two to a dozen at a time that did little more than impale themselves on amazonian spear-tips.

The women held the line with steely resolve, and dark blood began to mulch the ground at their feet.

At their back, was the Herald, standing there with the tip of his blade to the floor, its hands on the pommel guards as it watched the women battling with an air of detatched indifference.

The rain poured down harder now, and the wind grew so fierce Shayera had to land and keep her wings tucked close, to avoid being carried off in the gust.

The tide came, surged and pushed, but the line held, with spear, shield and sword the lines pushed back against the hordes that trickled in past the barricades in broken, uneven advances.

Corpses piled before the women, becoming a mound of impassable terrain in its own right. Hideously deformed corpses and nightmare creatures with gibbering mouths and drooling maws fell limply at their feet.

The league members still held back, conserving their strength, waiting for a breach in the line, a show of weakness in the warrior women for them to swoop in and seal the breach before the formation collapsed, all the while Fate's eerie voice drifted down from the mountain. A breath of power carried in the howls of the wind.

The storm above surged, clouds swirling in black and red. Lightning cut through the black sky and the clouds swirled in a cyclone. The cone of wind twisted and curved unnaturally, and like a black, mailed fist it suddenly smashed into the Amazonian line.

The women screamed, limbs shattered, bronze shields were cast into the air as spears snapped and bodies were thrown about like so many playthings.

It was then the Herald moved, its burning sword flashing into its hand as it charged through the breach in the line, and a million howling beasts poured through the rocky barricades towards the broken, center.

The incarnation of Ares fiery wrath roared, fire slashing through the air as the wind broke in the wake of its blade.

Then, peering through the blackness of night the lord of the underworld smiled, his ghostly body slipping away from the blade's edge.

The women drew their swords, a hundred plus blades emerging from leather scabbards as spears were cast aside. They rushed forward, ready to save what friends they could yet reach while others were beaten, or trampled to death by the advancing enemy.

With a word of magic, Zatanna placed her hand upon the earth and a dozen beasts in the shape of dogs, held together by magic with skin of stone and earth charged with them, growling and snarling as their paws bludgeoned and their jaws crushed breaking twisted bodies with unyielding stone.

Clark moved like a lance of blue and red, punching his way through the bulk of the horde. His fists punched through their bodies before casting them aside and his eyes flashed with heat rays that burned through flesh, blood and bone.

J'hon's eyes narrowed his body loosing its shape, twisting and changing before it found its intended form.

His tail lashed out like a whip damn near slicing one of the things in two with the tip before the others were battered aside as though they'd been hit by a train car.

Hissing like the snake form he'd taken, his fifty foot long body struck with lightning speed, armored scales buffeting the weapons they used to strike at him.

Between the three of them alone, hundreds were falling, but millions more surged forward in their place to mete out amazonian steel and skill with the sheer weight of number. More and more poured through the barricades, faster than they could be killed as what was once Diana finally engaged the form that was Hades.

The mountain stood, like an island about to be swallowed up by the tide as the mass of creatures surrounded it.

Above, at its peak power radiated from Fate's hands glowing a faint blue, like a holy aura. Its intensity grew, focused, condensed on a point just infront of his chest where it erupted into a brilliant ball of blue fire.

With a surge Fate's eyes snapped open beneath his helmet and the ball of energy flew through the air, blasting across the sky towards the eye of the storm.

The light hissed, cracked, scorching its way through the hell rain and black before it was swallowed whole by the spiraling clouds. For a moment it seemed as though it was lost.

A tremendous explosion sent a shockwave through the mountaintop shaking it like an earthquake, rocks were thrown loose, homes crushed beneath its weight, avalanches of loose stone and blood mulched earth fell through the village and down its crumbling sides.

A second sun of blast rings flew across the night sky rippling outwards from the eye of the storm.

In the flood of light Fate could see the scene around him and felt himself shiver. Surrounding his ritual ground on all side were oceans of corpses, like rocks in a river of bloody soil that tumbled down towards the valley.

No longer were their enemies mere cannon fodder however. The remaining Amazon warriors battled desperately against foes that flickered in and out of existence, surging towards the peak of the mountain where he stood seeking to stop him.

But there was the creature that was once Diana, towering over her sisters and locked in combat with none other than the Archtraitor himself.

The wailing doom flashed in its hands with unbelievable speed, slashing and cutting chunks out of Hades still unformed body while the Amazons pressed on to the last of them.

Then the light from his magic faded and the scenery was plunged into blackness again.

* * *

Fire and claws, blood and dirt, Flash slid to his knees just in time, skidding through the blood soaked earth as the attack passed over his head, without another moment of hesitation he rushed his enemy, flying across the battlefield, a broken spear shaft in hand, its steel tip plunging through flesh, sinew and bone before he pulled it out and slew the thing next to it.

But more came, climbing over their bloody dead as the Amazons charged into them, taking the opportunity provided by his opening.

Each Amazon was worth ten of these things, but there were so many more, millions upon millions against a mere few hundred crushing them beneath a tide of bodies. They trampled their injured underfoot as their gaping mouths moaned and they chittered like bugs. While the stronger ones now smashed against their tired warriors

Amazon spears and swords cut through the night with unerring precision, shocking deep into the mutated, calloused, chitinous flesh. Hundreds fell but more came closer and closer.

Flash spared a glanced behind him, nothing had yet broken through and Fate stood on the crest of the rise behind them, glowing in blue light as more blue fires burst from his body at increasingly regular intervals, and plunging into the eye of the storm.

And at the center of the village Flash saw Diana fighting their real enemy. Lightning ripped through the air between them where weapons met. And fire pushed back the darkness, the wailing doom shrieking across the sky.

Beside him any Amazons who could spare a glance felt fires grow in their soul, and the thirst for blood dousing their thoughts. He heard one woman scream out something, a sentence in greek he didn't understand.

But whatever it was, the call was returned by the rest of the warrior women.

But this was no distant response amidst a battle, the women rose the call from the depths of their beings as they fought chanting it out in tones high and low in rumbling harmony that fit the chaos of battle itself.

It wasn't long before Flash heard the words rise to a crescendo in the air as every remaining amazonian joined in the words, screaming them, singing them, crying them, all joined together as one. It reverberated around the entire cleft of the mountain, pounding its way through the rock itself, the earth moved beneath its power.

At the village center, a conduit for their chant The Avatar of Ares threw back its head and roared to the sky, repulsing the black power of Hades like dust in a storm, staggering the lord of the underworld in a moment of raw power.

_Ares_ they cried

And the God smiled back at his precious children from his place on Olympus. For that's what they would always be. Toss away their platitudes to Athena, love of Aphrodite, and his mothers promises and they were his. Warriors. They would always be warriors.

They would always be his.

Flash caught a glimpse of movement to his left and ducked as a familiar winged woman swooped down from the black sky, roaring in the way she always did before her mace crushed one creature's skull, blood and viscera washed over his body as Shayera landed in the thick of the horde. Wings, as strong as a wooden bat smashed around her as her mace crushed bone and pulped flesh. She roared and screamed a hundred curses as she struck again and again and again. Flash rushed to her side, skewering another of these demons a half dozen times with sword and broken spear, before standing back to back with his one time comrade. They swung and hacked, the unfamiliar act of killing coming so easily it would haunt him years later.

_Ares._ They cried, and he felt it in his own being.

There was a flash of green at their side, and a hundred demons were sent plummeting down the mountainside, sundering themselves against rock and the bodies of others like them.

The Ram was replaced by a sickled whip, its tip like a razor blade as Stewart swept it over the lesser demons pressing against them, cutting a dozen or more of the things in half as the Amazons pressed against the tide.

* * *

Diana could see herself. See hands that were not hers move, feel wounds that were not on her flesh sting. Feel the weight resting in a strangers hand. It was all different, none of it was her.

Nothing but their voice. Their voice was the same and she heard herself shout as she swept her blade with ferocity, hacking into the increasingly solidifying body of the Dark God.

_Ares_ They sang to her.

And the sword sang in the hand that wasn't hers, humming and glowing with a fiery life of its own. It cried for blood, demanded life. The wailing doom that shrieked as it cut through the air.

Every slash resonated through the dimensions, slicing through the very substance of space, cutting Hades on both sides of the breach.

Hades surged forward, roaring as he tackled a body that wasnt hers to the ground. Making her feel pain that should never have been. **"**_**Fool!"**_ He screamed and the boom of his footsteps sent mulched ground and carcasses of crushed Daemon and Amazon alike tumbling down the mountainside.

His fury increased as the Wailing Doom cut into his barely corporeal flesh, ravaging his body even as it was being born into the world. Diana, the Herald, The Avatar, swung again and again, relentless in its assault feeling an ache in her bones that did not exist.

But still they sang, and still she swung to their cry.

_Ares_

The storm spiraled overhead, shuddering now in and out of the dimensions, forced into focus by Hades will and pulled right back out again as Fate's magic grew stronger.

The energy from the storm poured down down into Hades growing body, filling him with strength, with power and the black lord lashed out, raking claws, talons, swords and weapons that tore into her. Dianna screamed, hearing her voice and feeling the pain of wounds that had no place on her flesh. And blood that was not blood flowed, red hot. Molten rivers of fire poured from these wounds that she did not have.

She screamed defiance to the God, to all gods, stepping inside the flailing limbs of the black prince and driving the sword home where the beast's heart should be.

Above, at the summit, Fate unleashed another blast of blue flame into the heart of the storm, sweat marring his forehead beneath the helmet, his limbs growing heavy, desperate now to seal the breach before Diana failed and Hades was fully borne.

Before his own strength failed.

He saw more wounds rend the immaterial flesh off of Diana's body and Fate could only feel his desperation claw at him, desperation that transformed to black rage.

Fate roared with anger, with terror, focusing his emotions into a searing ball of bright white that rocketed down, not up and smashed directly into Hades body itself.

Distracted as the archtraitor had been it stumbled beneath the force of the blast, staggering down and loosing its footing as the Avatar moved forward, its blade a relentless blur.

_Ares_

Tendrils of energy darted out of Hades limbs, questing for purchase and lashing out in retaliation. Around it, clutches of rock stone, Demon and Amazon were vaporized in whips of dark fire as Diana pressed forward with all the burning fury of Ares, the God of War.

Fate clutched at the last vestiges of his arcane energies, screaming into the black sky as he focused all his force into his chest for the final blow.

The coruscating ball of blue fire pulsed in the air before him, eager to be loosed.

_Now!_

Then, agony lanced up his shoulder, hot blood flowering from vicious cuts that slashed through his clothing. The power faded to nothing, and Fate spun around, staggering as he clutched at the new injury that burned over his shoulder and back.

The creatures broke through, in the blink of an eye the lesser demons that had been pressing feebly against the Amazonian spears, shields and swords, at the thin, western line were replaced by vicious monsters, ten feet tall, horned and bloodied with rusted black blades that were covered with with viscera and sluiced with the dripping, oil slick rain.

He eyed a chained blade on the floor, coated red with his blood as one of the demons climbed its way up the mountainside to his ritual grounds, roaring through pointed teeth and a black mouth.

With an angry brush of his hand Fate sent a torrent of crackling lightning that smashed into the demon, ripping through him and striking a score of his fellows directly behind him. The beasts shrieked and howled, turning their own bodies inside out while others imploded into tiny tears in the fabric of reality to return to the underworld.

With a blur of White and Red, Kara stormed her way into the bulk of the horde, punching and crushing, fire blasting out of her eyes and ice from her lips as her fists grew slicker with blood.

"Fate!" Batman yelled slashing with an amazonian sword somewhere nearby. "We're being overwhelmed!" He yelled, driving the point of the sword into a demon's skull and tossing an explosive battarang into the chest of another. A blast of burning flesh and sundered entrails spilling over the ground.

_Yes._ The sorcerer thought. _And yet still they sing_.

The Dark Knight turned, pulling two large, bladed batarangs from his belt and activating the batteries that sent sparks of electricity dancing over its blades as he engaged yet another of the creatures.

It seemed to slip and slide around his strikes, as though it were not wholly solid. Bruce growled spinning with his blades, gouging deep slices over the flesh of two or three other lesser creatures that drew too close with every other strike, but the dancing half there half gone form seemed to evade his every move. It glowed like light behind a miasmic cloud making it shimmer and shudder with the rain drenched night.

It spat and hissed, its ghostly, near invisible claws nearly tearing Bruces skull in two if he hadn't seen it at the last moment.

Twin beams of red hot energy lashed through the thing and it shrieked like a banshee, howling to the moon as it burst with a plume of fire. It writhed and shuddered, spamming sporadically in its ghostly form beneath the flames. But too fast for Bruce to see, it spat something back at its attacker, Clark, who'd turned to face more of the endless enemies that assailed them from all sides.

It struck him like napalm, burning over his back and clothing with a cry of agony that was pried from the kryptonian's lips.

In an instant, Philipus and Artemis were at his sides, blades parting seams of flesh and blossoming fountains of dark red.

Artemis's swung her twin swords like extensions of her arms. They were more claws than weapons as she cut and sliced while Philipus' shield bludgeoned, blocked and pushed an aegis over the downed kryptonian.

Bruce surged forward, and with a thought, J'hon announced his impending interruption.

Bruce lunged at its naked legs sweeping the electric blades in a lateral arc, but the thing was too fast, springing into the air, bathed in fire. Then J'hon arived, with a punch against the things chest sending him rocketing back down to the swampy earth.

The thing went to stand when Bruce launched a batarang with expert accuracy and sending the black, bat shaped weapon straight through its exposed neck.

For a horrible moment nothing happened, but with another fist, J'hon sent the things head flying from its shoulders, ichorous blood bursting from the stump of its neck.

Bruce's legs nearly left him at the sound of a crash that rumbled the earth beneath his feet, turning with a flourish of his cape, the Dark Knight had just enough time to see the fiery Avatar beset by Hades. Pinning the embodiment of Ares power on earth against the rock, with tendrils of dark energy lashing it down. What was once Dianna thrashed and twisted to get free, but Hades strength was growing, and his force was seen now as she was held down.

The sword lay on the ground where it had fallen, buried into the earth, gouging a dark hole into the rock face.

Another blast struck at Hades face, bolts of blue power triggering a terrible keening. And again, Diana, or what was once Diana capitalized on the opportunity. It bucked Hades off and and reached for the fallen weapon.

Hades turned, almost ponderously as its fathomless eyes seared over the Avatar held beneath it just before the Wailing doom, forged by Hephaestus himself rent into its unholy face with a tremendous burst of ancient magics.

Hades screamed, long and loud, roaring as it felt the blade slice, and shatter his skull in a million dimensions at once.

**_Ares!_**

The Avatar rose to its feet again, molten blood cascading down its skin and trailing down the mountain side.

With one last effort of will, the bloody handed incarnation of Ares power swung the sword in a blazing arc. The ancient blade wailed into the eye of the storm, heralding doom as it always had, and the Avatar let out a roar that summoned silence onto the mountain. Every eye turned to watch the terrible blow.

A stream of blazing energy was left in its wake. Its tip ripped into the body of the underworld king with the sound of reality being sundered. The blade plowed through the abdomen, spraying black corrosive energy and toxic liquids across the face of the mountain, slicing up through its neck, smashing into the base of its skull.

_**ARES!**_

Fate raised his arms to the sky, shaking with waning strength as he held a small, shimmering stone in his hand. He chanted in tongues, a babbled conglomeration of words that would have made no sense to any who would have heard it, not even Zatanna.

With one final surge, blue energy flew to the night, and with a blast that shook the earth and tore the sky apart, the whole world seemed to hold his breath before Hades screamed, roaring as its all too real body thrashed and struggled against bonds that pulled him back, back to his prison as the storm above began to dissipate as the entire mountain shook beneath their feet.

Fate collapsed, falling onto his hands and knees, panting as the Avatar fell, slumped against the mountain-face, its sword held limply in its grasp.

The demons cried and yelled, babbled, cursed and panicked, breaking against the all but shattered lines of amazonian warriors as they cried and tramped over their own to escape the blood and fire of Amazon steel. While others were simply swallowed back into the abyss from where they came, vanishing into the earth or tears in the air itself.

* * *

Bruce stumbled to his feet, dust and grit, kicking off of his body and cape with his movements.

One arm throbbed at the joint, his temples pounded as his ears rang with a high pitched whine.

A hazy, mist blanketed the area, the clouds overhead rippling out with traces of bloody red splashed across the black night sky.

His hearing returned slowly, first to the bellowed cries of the amazonians still standing, then, to fainter noises, the fading thunder overhead, the dirt beneath his feet, the moans of the wounded or dying all around.

He turned his head, fighting a vague sense of nausea at the wave of dizziness the movement caused.

The fiery body of the Herald glowed like a bonfire just under the cusp of the hill, with the flames growing dim as they burnt out.

Bruce rushed forward, cursing with a hiss as his ankle throbbed with a sharp agony beneath the shock of his weight. He ignored the pain, pushing himself past it as he maneuvered between the carcasses and the wounded to where the glow of the flames was dying away.

He passed just over the rise in time to see the fire die out with a _whoosh_ as though all the air had been sucked out of the area in an instant.

And she lay there, in silks of black and red, her hair spilling out from the neck of the helmet in a dark curtain, one hand clad in gilded steel, whist the fingers of her other hand just barely caressed the pommel of her sword.

For a moment that lasted forever Bruce felt his heart stop. She wasn't breathing.

Then, he saw her chest rise, her lips quiver, and her fingers tremble. The hacking cough that shook her body must have been one of the most beautiful sounds he could ever remember hearing.

He walked closer, kneeling at her side as he placed his hand on her shoulder. "Diana?"

She opened her eyes, turning them onto him and smiling softly.

He may have smiled a little himself.

"Come on." He said, shifting down he held her head awkwardly as he pulled the helmet off, and released her hand from the gauntlet before moving to pick her up. "Lets get you somewh-"

He never got to finish. A backhand to the side of his cowl sent the taste of metal through his mouth and his eyes spinning as the world tilted over with his back hitting the floor.

He blinked, swallowing the blood, forcing himself out of his daze through sheer stubbornness alone as he got to his feet.

He never saw his face, only the hint of dark armor before he stepped through the tear he'd rent through the dimensions. Dianna being dragged right behind him.

"**No!"**

The air around the tear was like breathing a cloud of ammonia, cold and stinging with the sense of sickness. It made his eyes water beneath the cowl, as he grit his teeth, and _pulled._

Only her arm remained outside of the portal, held fast by his own strength as he kept trying to drag her back to the world of the living.

Tendrils of fleshy potrusions, emerged from the sides of the tear like whips, lashing his limbs and body. The things were sharper than anything that size should have been, and cut through his body armor like it was little more than wet paper.

Blood flowed freely, but Bruce refused to release her hand.

They sliced into his shoulders, lashed at his sides, cut open his forearms and biceps. His strength began to ebb and he saw Dianna sink further.

He held on tighter.

He jerked to the side, at the last minute seeing one of those things going for his neck, managing instead to get a cut that went from his chest to his collarbone.

She sank a little deeper.

Bruce felt arms wrap around his waist pulling him back.

The slashes continued, hitting and cutting with more ferocity, as though vexed by his stubbornness.

"_Let go! You'll kill yourself!" _He heard the person behind him say.

He grasped so hard at Diana's wrist he must have left bruises.

It wasn't until the blood spattered over his gloves and her hand, turning it slick and impossible to grasp, that her arm was released and Bruce was dragged back from the closing portal.

"**No!" ** He heard someone scream again. And only then realized that it'd been him.

* * *

Well here you go, there's been some delays on my end admitedly but hopefully the next chapter will come much quicker than this one.

Hope you all enjoyed it and are looking forward to the next. Read and review.


	13. Chapter 13

He fell, the haze of the hellish night breaking before the dawn in his mind's eye as purifying flame spread across the sky.

Hades grip upon the material shuddered, writhed and weakened but still he felt the horrible claws of that dark power tearing at what little barriers he had left, and it was all he could do keep his mind from collapsing into madness as that voice, tore into his mind.

"_**Fool!"**_ It screamed. **_"I am eternal, I am forever! You cannot kill death!"_**

It was tearing, ripping, clawing, his mind bled. Magic and Psy-stuff coming undone like wet parchment.

He was almost deaf to the Amazons around him, and the demons that broke upon their spears.

"_For Themyschera!"_

"_Fight on Sisters! With blade and fire hold your faith in Olympus!"_

Above their battle Fate's hands clutched at his helmet, his mind crumbling under the voice. Full of Dark power, impossibly ancient, impossible to resist.

"**_Fall now! Your end is at hand!"_ **It demanded.

He was nothing, dust, struggling against cosmic wind!

"_To the Last blade, the last spear, and the last shield! **Fight!**"_

"_Take them! Now!"_

"_One for a thousand, Sisters!"_

"_For Queen Hypolata and our Princess Dianna"_

The claws found new purchase, regaining their grip, power returning to Hades' hold on this earth.

_No!' _His voice was as that of a child's and Fate could only quail as that miasmic presence neared closer, threatening to swallow him whole.

"_**DESPAIR MORTAL! FOR I AM THE END OF DAYS!"**_

And despair swept through Fate like the biting wind of some fell winter. His strength abandoning him entirely as the power of Hades grew again.

_'Failed...I...Have failed.'_

"_**Ares!"**_

The cry cut through the encroaching black like a spear of golden sunlight and Fate felt his eyes open as he heard it again, resonating out of the women surrounding him.

"_For the fallen!"_

"_**Ares!"**_

He could see, his witch-sight was no longer blind.

He had not failed...no...he hadn't failed. Hades' hold was tenuous, fragile. He could see now.

"_**ARES!"**_

This was the deity's last chance, his last desperate attempt to keep his hold on this world.

His voice, that booming, all encompassing voice that had all but drowned out the world was a distant thing now. Like a whisper caught in the wind., An echo across the chasm.

And with a final burst of all his remaining energy Fate expelled the presence from his mind, leaving only the enraged cry to remain. Which was soon consumed away as he was sucked back into the underworld, the rending of the dimensions widening with his passing as the Herald of Ares burning fury rent his body apart with the power of the God of War and the Wailing doom within its grasp.

With the last of his strength spent, Fate fell onto the stone floor, his helmet striking with a metal thunk upon its surface, remaining utterly still.

A life age of the earth could have passed and he would not have known the difference. It was only the arcane, screaming onto his thoughts, warnings of danger that brought him back to awareness...

He pushed himself to his feet, struggling to rise as he lifted his head.

His eyes found The Batman, stalking towards him like some wild animal in the night and all his magiks screamed at him, all his powers and skills warned him at once to get away, spoke of his ill intent.

The man was bloodied, and the tang of the scent reached him before he did, but whatever injuries he had did not seem to do overmuch to slow him down.

No one was up here, none had thought to look. The danger had passed for them.

But not for him...

The talon that was his black gloved hand clamped around Fates' throat, slipping beneath the lower edges of the helmet and for all his power, Fate found that he could no more survive with lack of air than any other mortal.

He struggled with his hands, wrapping them around the Dark Knight's wrists, the flows and eddies of magic coming too slowly to wakefulness. Already his eyes were clouding, his sight in this world dimming to little more than the fearsome white eyes of his murderer.

His heart sent fire across his veins, ice through his lungs and a pressure pounding and pounding against his temple as his struggles continued to diminish.

Then...sweet relief.

Air returned to his lungs, quenching the fire as Fate felt himself lifted off the ground before being sent back down, violently. The back of his skull struck the stone floor and even with the helmet the blow was powerful enough to make his vision swim and his head throb.

"I warned you." The maddened human said, growling down at him before Fate felt a blow fall onto his stomach like a hammer striking an anvil, whatever strength he'd managed to regain vanished in a second as he choked on his own blood and spit. "Bring her back." He demanded

Fate was lifted again, and slammed back down before being raised a third time, now with his helmet obscured face inches away from Batman's own. "Bring her back!" The dark Knight repeated. Demanded. "Or I'll break your bones one at a time."

"Batman!" The sorcerer heard shortly before the black clad hero was pulled off of him. His fingers tightened for half a heartbeat before fully releasing him, allowing the ancient mage to fall onto the ground struggling for breath.

The bat growled, yanking his clenched fists free of J'hon's grip as GL and Hawkgirl join them, drawn by the commotion.

"What the hell is wrong with you!" Stewart says, taking a spot between the wheezing Fate and the still seething Bat.

The others trickle in now too, Flash, Zatana, Kara...Clark.

The man of steel is practically leaning on the Amazons, Artemis and Philipus. He'd hurled himself straight into the horde where the fighting had grown thickest taking all their fury and dishing out his own. His strength was spent now, but the Amazons of the eastern defense line were already beginning to hail him as Hector reborn.

Clark's blue eyes need to take the scene for half a heartbeat before he pulls himself up, stumbling forward as he speaks. "Bruce...don't tell me-" He trails off, the words failing him.

The Dark Knight's silence and continued glare answer well enough.

"Oh no." Everyone hears Clark's muttered breath, Flash voices the mutual confusion held by himself, Lantern, Hawkgirl and J'hon.

"What's going on here guys?"

Stewart is the first to pick up the glaring hint. "Where's Diana?"

Flash zips away, Hawk Girl takes to the skies.

The seconds that pass are thick with tension before Flash zooms right back. "I-I cant find her!"

"I don't see her either." The Thanagarian called as she descended.

"Then our princess-" Phillipus said with a bow of her head that was mimicked by Artemis, "-has joined her ancestors."

"What in the hell does that mean?" John asked, all but barking out the question as he looked too and fro to the grief stricken faces of Clark, Kara and Zatanna.

"She has passed from this world." J'hon answered before turning his unerringly glowing eyes to Batman. "And you knew this would happen."

It was an accusation, one that Bruce wouldn't even bother denying.

"You what?" Flash yelled, marching over towards the Dark Knight, there was anger in his voice and a tension to his posture. "What the hell do you mean you knew?"

"Why do you think he was up here beating the crap out of goldenrod?" John asked rhetorically. "He must have realized something happened to Dianna and he had a part in it too."

"We all did John." Clark said, coming to his friend's defense. "Diana, Bruce, Kara, Zatanna Fate, even the Amazons, we all knew that this was...a possibility."

"A possibility?" The marine shouted, rounding on the man of steel. "A possibility is all your men dying in a gunfight. You don't strap a bomb to someone's chest, set it off and then call her death a "possibility" Superman."

"No." Batman interrupted returning eyes back to himself before looking to Zatanna, the one who had pulled him from the portal. "You saw it. She's not dead."

Zatanna shook her head. "Bruce we both saw her get dragged through that portal-"

"Exactly!" The Dark Knight cut her off "She was taken! She never died! She was taken somewhere, somewhere we can follow!"

She shook her head eyes growing wide. "What? No! You can't seriously intend to follow her!"

"We will." Clark announced, straightening a little bit more. "If there's a chance to save Dianna we have to try" the magician saw each of the league members nod, their faces were masks of grim determination.

Batman kept his glare on Fate, who was now rising to his feet. "And you're going to help us do it."

Fate looked to the human through his helmet, glaring at the mortal who dared propose such a ludicrous request.

He couldn't help it. His shoulders were shaking as he laughed.

"Will I now?" He asked, through choked laughter. "You would have me rend the fabric of the dimensions apart, the fabric that we have just reinforced against Hades' to save one mortal Amazonian on some doomed rescue?" He shook his head, the disgust now seeping back into his voice. "Is it blind bravado or sheer stupidity that drives your words?"

"You will help." Gotham's guardian repeated.

"And why is that."

The sorcerer was then encased in green energy, its grip tightening over him just before the point of pain.

"Because then you'll have to deal with us." Stewart warned, glaring with eyes that rippled with the power of his ring.

Fate looked to them. The eight people that stood before him. Each powerful in their own right. Could he defy them? He could.

Would he survive?

Perhaps he would. Perhaps, he would not.

And then who would be left? Who would hold the mantle after him? Who but he could see the true threats? The real dangers?

Too few.

Too few and even fewer truly cared anymore.

"Very well then." He finally answered, feeling relief as the green energy dissipated from around him. "However, only one may follow the Princess."

"Fine then I'll go." Clark answered.

Fate shook his head. "No, no." He tsked. "Only a mortal child of the Gods, may venture into their realms."

"Mortal child of the gods?" Flash asked, to Fate, himself and everyone else that could hear him.

"He means humans." Zatanna answered. "Only a Mortal Human can follow."

It took a second before all eyes turned back to Batman.

Bruce scowled before stepping forward. "I was going anyway."

"The ritual requires preparation." Fate said, in three days time, you will be sent. I suggest you use that time to make yourself ready."

"Three days is too long." He growled.

"Too long?" Fate scoffed. "We are tearing an open hole through the very fabric of time and space, shredding the spun threads of reality that hold all universes intact. I assure you mortal, three days is tantamount to nothing at all."

Though he grit his teeth Bruce nodded. "Fine, but Ares better have me banging down his front doorstep in seventy two hours. No later.

"Ares?" Fate chuckled again. "Oh no, mortal. It was not Ares that took your precious Diana, the God of war is impatient, eager for his prize but he is also wrathful. He would have done this within view of all amazons, ostentatious and obvious for all to see. No. Olympus is not where you're going. You will be traveling to the realm of Hades himself. Your Princess lies in wait for you in the Underworld; Dark Knight"

Batman's eyes narrowed on the ancient sorcerer, all but seeing the smile hidden beneath that helmet before he turns around and begins walking away. "Kent, J'hon you're with me, let's call in a Javelin and get to Gotham. The rest of you...make sure he starts working on this. Now."

* * *

The cave was as dark, with the dank, putrid smell of bat droppings infecting the air. No one found much relief in the fluorescent lights systematically turning on as they got closer and closer to the Super-computer.

The massive thing turned on with a whine of turbines, the blue glow lighting up the main floor.

_'Primary systems, online'_

Clark and J'hon trailed after Batman watching as the billionaire superhero clicked a dozen or more keys on the computer.

_'Accessing secure holdings.'_

He typed some more. _'Accessing vault nine. Please input key passwords. Warning, incorrect input will trigger security protocol level Omega.'_

"Well that doesn't sound good." Clark couldn't help but comment when he saw three password lines show up on the screen

Bruce typed them in then, with a clang, and a grind of steel hating steel J'hon and Superman turned their eyes up above where a giant mechanical claw arm was lowering with something the size of a cargo shiping crate was lowered onto the main floor.

"How many safes do you have?" Clark asked, remembering the four massive ones reachable by the Cave's cargo elevator.

"Enough." Was the answer as the dark hero marched over to the safe.

Pressing in yet another code, Bruce stepped back as the door finally opened.

There was a wash of cold and the stink of bat droppings was joined by the sterile, clean smell of chlorine and disinfectant, made all the more potent by being cold cooked for as long as they had been.

When the door fully opened, Clark and J'hon felt their eyes going a wide as their gazes settled on a black suit of on its chest was a silver bat, the only thing on the suit that wasnt completely black, overlapping pannels of what appeared to be metal made up the entirety of the thing from head to toe, with the helmet/cowl being a solid plate that opened up from the back. It would cover Bruce's entire face when he put it on.

"Batman...what-"

"I've been working on it for the last two years." He interrupted stepping into the safe, pressing in yet _another_ code on a small control panel, releasing the magnet locks that would bind the suit in place, and explode if anyone tried to forcefully remove the state of the art equipment. "This suit is a prototype, the first, and probably last of its kind. The power-source is simply too expensive."

"What could possibly be too expensive for you?" Kent asked, almost gleeful that such a prospect even existed.

"You wouldn't have heard of it, every government on earth deems it illegal and more dangerous than nuclear energy. The only reason I know of it is by hacking and storing the files I've taken from Ra's Al Ghul."

"Ra's?" Clark sounded aghast. "Its not-"

"No, its not Lazarus. Regardless, the suit will run for one standard week, approximately, with the amount I currently have to power it."

"Then what exactly are we here for?" Jhon asked, joining the conversation for the first time.

Bruce turned around, facing the two with a raised eyebrow.

"You're going to help me discover this suits limit before these three days are up."

* * *

The computer readouts spiked as they went online, inactive systems powering themselves to life, red signals going green as J'hon kept his eyes on the diagnostics.

Suit power systems, cooling systems, servo motor systems, emergency backup systems, armor inlay systems, outlay systems, outer suit armor integrity, inner suit armor integrity, biological lifesigns, servo motor intakes, processor speed, electronic interface integrity, air filtration system, eye setting displays, strength of the computer upload link, nerve connection interface.

And this, Batman had said, was just the overview.

"Batman." He calls down through the cave's intercom. "You can move now."

He watches the man take his first step in this experimental suit of armor, and J'hon finds himself, somewhat amazed at the theoretical strength this suit should have.

Its not nearly as bulky as Lex Luthor's kryptonite powered monstrosity, or even suit of Mr. Freeze that batman must frequently contend with.

It adds about half a foot to his height making even Superman look up to him now, his shoulders are a bit more broad, but besides that the suit offers almost full range of movement, how he's designed it, or where he's acquired such lightweight, powerful metals to consist of the armor's main form of protection J'hon does not know, nor does he think he will find out anytime soon.

Clark stands on the other end of the platform, impact sensors and cameras souround them from dozens of angles providing second to second data feeds on the change in atmosphere between the two for crying out loud.

"So what exactly is this test Bruce?"

"Impact and blunt force resistance specs."

"Sooo we would..."

"You're going to hit me." The Dark Knight answered. J'hon suspects the speakers were custom made to make his voice sound even drier than usual.

"Bruce..." Clark ventured uneasily. "I dont-"

"Start by trying to stop a semi. We'll work up from there."

Clark licked his lips, looking up at the catwalks for J'hon to help, but the martian's face was impassive before the holographic computer screen.

He shrugged taking a deep breath before he ran forward.

His shoulder slammed into Bruce's unguarded chest, feeling his limb protest at the hard metal, Clark was both surprised by the strength of the metal, and the suits sheer weight.

Most surprising was the fact that Bruce did not go flying into the opposite wall. For all the strength (Comparatively of course) that Clark placed into the shove Bruce took three steps back and no more.

"What the hell is that thing made of?"

Bruce flexed his wrist, bringing it up to his face, inspecting his arm before he looked back to Clark and answered. "Superdense titanium alloys folded and refolded in Wayne industries Space program. It was meant to be used as a hull in deep Space missions, able to survive extreme temperatures and any debris that may be floating in orbit or small meteorites."

"Meteorites? Just how deep into space were they going?"

"Deep enough." He answered before turning his eyes back up to Jhon. "Results?"

"All suit systems remained well into the green zone, little to no structural damage, interior integrity standing well."

Bruce nodded. "Right, lets do more of these tests. After that we'll proceed to stage 2"

"What's stage 2?" Kent asked.

Bruce smiled

"I get to hit you back."

* * *

Zatanna watched as Fate worked, The league members had barely left the sorcerer out of their sight since Batman and Superman had left with J'hon in tow. None knew nor trusted him, he had been allowed some rest, but even that was only because of Shayera who'd practically placed herself between Fate and the remaining Justice league members, defending the man who'd taken her in when no one else would from everyone, especially John , who seemed ready to use force if he had to to get Fate to work on this...gateway.

And so now here they were, with the morning sun creeping up from the east with her sitting on what remained of some piece of stone masonry as Fate worked and the others rested, the Amazon's weren't even on their way back to Themyschera yet.

"You sure this is gonna work?" She asked.

"Entering the land of the dead is simple. Getting back is another matter."

She followed the symbols his magic carved into the stone with her eyes, deciphering what little she could recognize, trying to puzzle out what she could not.

She saw him burn a particular rune on the ground and stood up, eyes squinting at the vague familiarity of the symbol and trying to place its meaning.

"Do not bother." Her company put in. "It will be more likely for a mortal to catch starlight with his bare hands than for one as young as you to know its meaning."

Zatanna's lips pursed, brows scrunching up in irritation.

"Why do you hate us so much?"

Fate paused in his task, eyes trailing over to her. "Hate?"

"Yes." She answered still glaring at him for all she was worth. "What exactly crawled up your ass and died there! Every word out of your mouth has been little more than an insult, or an instruction _followed_ by an insult? Everything anyone of us does just pisses you off even more and if I'm gonna put up with it I'd at least like to know why."

Fate stared at her for a moment before averting his eyes and continuing his previous work. Standing at his full height, open palm held downwards to the floor more runes were being slowly burned onto the stone surface.

Zatanna was gonna go off on another tirade before she suddenly huffed, irritated and annoyed with both him and the situation before she closed her mouth with a click, curling her lips back in irritation before she crossed her arms and looked up to the morning twilight.

"It is not hate."

His voice caught her off guard. It actually took her a moment to realize that he was the one that she heard actually.

"What?" She winced when she finished asking it. It was no small miracle he was speaking at all. To ask him to repeat it, therefore somewhat admitting she had not been paying attention might just give this conversation a quick death before it even got started.

"It is not hate." He repeated and threw a glance her way to both make sure she was listening and to keep her silent. "I do not hate mortals. I am merely tired by you."

"Tired?"

"Yes..." His shoulders seemed to sag with the word. "Tired. I am tired. I have lived far longer than I should have. I have done more than any once mortal man should have, but no mater how far I travel no mater how much I do or the wonders I create no matter how great the things I have seen...Mortals are a stagnant thing."

She stayed quiet, listening waiting for him to elaborate, it seemed to her he was talking as much to himself as to her at this point.

"Your lives are measured in decades. My life is measured in eons. They are simple, finite things, made all the more beautiful for their frailty and abruptness. Your passions burn strong while you live, your words hold the truest meaning to yourselves, everything about mortals burns the purest. But these eyes...these eyes have seen it all before."

She understood...she supposed. To those who lived normal lifespans everyone seems unique, but anyone on earth can say one person reminds them of someone else they've known. How many times did Fate see Clark's honest nature? Or Flash's immaturity? Or Shayera's ferocity?

_'My life is measured in eons'_

Too many, she imagined.

"Mortals are like the ocean." He continued. "One never looks upon the same molecule of water ever again once it has passed one's eye and yet they still stare at the same thing. A hundred times I have seen the greatest of you rise. Seen deeds accomplished by a man that I have said will ring through the ages of this world only for it to be inevitably swallowed by the ignominious sands of time. And most tragic of all is that one must realize that not only are your lives mortal, but everything done within is mortal as well. The time of its remembrance may be measured in centuries, or even millenia for true legends. But it will ultimately be forgotten as well."

"What about this here?" She asked, cutting into his words. "Don't you think this will last? That what we've done here matters?"

He laughed then, a bitter, hollow sound that he seemed to want to spit out more than anything else.

"Don't you see?" He asked. "Look around you. None but ourselves shall ever know of this."

"Someone will-"

"_Look" _He cut her off gesturing around him with his hand.

She did as asked, seeing nothing but the ruins of the village and the color splashed horizon all around her.

When he kept looking at her expectantly she grew uncertain, thinking for half a second before she delved into her powers.

She pierced the veil immediately.

Helicopters roared overhead the wind whipping up sand into her face, reporters and army officials from the standing government milled this way and that way, brightly flashing lights blinding her for the split second she was there before she was dragged back into the tranquil space above the church.

"Do you see now?"

Her eyes snapped up to him. "You're holding us all in an illusion?" She was horrified, how long had this been going on? Why hadn't she sensed it sooner?

"No." He said as calm as ever. "I am holding them in an illusion. Once they enter this place they are trapped by it, they cannot see us or feel us or touch us in any way shape or form. That includes the Amazon's and your friends of the league. What you stand in is the real world. What they stand in is a liquid reflection of it.

Once again, she was astonished by the degree of control and skill Fate had over his powers. If she were doing something like this, on this scale, it'd take her full concentration. But here he was having a conversation and carving runes into the floor to create an arcane gateway between dimensions.

"No one will know." Fate said. "Mortals are too frail their minds, their societies could not cope. They would sooner tear each other apart before they can grasp the fact that they are not the sole power in the universe. The day will come when that changes, when they as a race may elevate themselves to a higher field of knowledge. But that day is not for a long time yet. And so I will wait, wait while the greatest of them fail and their deeds go forgotten or unsung entirely."

"You don't think he'll make it do you?"

He stayed quiet.

She stood, angry. "Then why the hell are you helping with this?"

"Because with or without me he will venture into the realm of Hades. With, or without me, he will die there and the princess will be held prisoner. His determination is not in doubt, merely his wisdom.

"Why didn't you tell-"

"Do you think it would change his mind?"

Her mouth closed with a click, cursing to high heaven the fact that he was right.

"Then send me with him, or Green lantern, or Flash? You said only mortal's can venture right? Children of Olympus? We all have powers sure but we're all mortal and we're all human's born on earth!"

"Your souls have already been fundamentally changed by your abilities. The powers that fuel all of your abilities has altered everything about you. It is the most subtle of changes but it does exist. His soul is human. He uses nothing more than his own skill and faith in his weaponry and in himself. By himself his chances stand at nigh impossible, with any of you at his side, they most certainly will be."

"How do I know any of that is true?" She asked gritting her teeth at the man.

Fate laughed

"You don't."

* * *

He checked the suit readouts one more time all systems displaying green parameters.

He breathed, the cold, filtered air stinging his nostrils as he did and checked one more time into the suits armored thigh holster. The square stone within it glowing faintly before he resealed the holster.

"You sure about this?" Clark asked for what seemed like the hundredth time in the last two hours.

Bruce stood walking past his blue and red clad friend and towards the remains of the village church. The others were gathered there standing on the very edge of the platform, Bruce ignored them and the looks they were throwing his way, his eyes bored straight ahead where Fate stood at the head of a circle burned into the ground.

He felt a hand on his arm and turned his head to find Zatanna looking up at him. "Bruce, don't-"

"I'm going." He interrupted. She'd been asking time and time again for the last day or so for him not to go, saying that Fate knew he was going to die, that he would be lost down there and Diana would be held prisoner forever.

Bruce answered her then as he answered her now. If he was going to die so be it. At least he'd die trying.

Zatanna stepped back eyes trailing down to the floor. Bruce stepped past her without another word.

"Are you ready then?" Fate asked, seemingly bored with the proceedings.

"Open it."

The sorcerer clapped his hands together without any further delay, his voice carrying a hymn across the space between them.

The air rippled, and with a brightening glow of dark blue the runes began to come alive beneath his feet.

Dark purple light soared up into the night like a skylight and the screech of what Bruce could only describe as straining metal was heard for moments before it finally died away.

When the light diminished and the sound faded Bruce was left with a gaping black pit at his feet.

"Go now." He heard Fate say. "I dare not hold this portal open for long."

Bruce dared one look behind him to the others. Zatanna, Kara, Kent, John, J'hon, Flash and Shayera all looked on with their expressions equal parts grim and fearful.

Not sad though.

None were sad. They didn't need to be.

"I'll be back with her."

He stepped off and plunged into the depths of Hades.

* * *

Zatanna watched with the others, seeing him vanish in an instant as his head finally fell beneath the portal and then saw when Fate sealed it behind him.

She looked to the sorcerer, his face hidden by his helmet, shoulders stiff. She could imagine the look of disdain beneath the helm already.

She felt her spine stiffen, her shoulders straighten before she marched up to him. He turned his sight to her with no word.

"You're wrong." She said.

"Why? Because he promised he would return?"

She smiled. "Yea."

Fate shook his head. "You are a fool."

Her smile grew wider.

* * *

Sorry this (admittedly) filler chapter took me so long but things have been busy. On the brighter side of news I'm graduating my bachelors in Crim. Jus. and am about to take the LSAT to get into lawschool. Badness is that cuts into my writing time significantly.

Still, regardless I hope to have the last two (possibly 3) chapters of this story done in a month's time. That's the plan so far at any rate.


	14. Chapter 14

He fell.

He fell down into darkness.

He fell into shadow.

Down down down.

Cold seeped into his limbs a biting chill that spoke of magic. The suit would have protected him otherwise.

He landed on his feet, shock absorbers and impact dampeners absorbing the harsh impact. He was surrounded by black, and endless nothingness. The cowl's vission modes did nothing to help his sight, there was nothing to see in this pit and it was becoming so cold here.

Was this a trap? Did Fate send him somewhere other than the Underworld to die?

"Well well...what have we here?"

Bruce turned with speed, despite the weight of his prototype suit eye lenses fixating on an old woman.

She stood tall, her spine ramrod straight, if not for her face, batman would have thought she was no older than perhaps forty with her physique. She wore a robe of dark red, almost rusty brown really tied to her waist with a sash of the same color, her eyes were greener than emeralds, nearly glowing with their own eerie light between them.

Her hair was held in place by some headdress of metal he couldn't quite place an origin too, a silvery white mane of hair that seemed more well cared for than that of women half her age.

"Who are you?"

She smiled, a sly little thing, a quirk of her lips that was more mocking than it should have been. ""Who am I?" you ask. What makes you think I'm anything at all? How do you know you're not just imagining this?"

"Answer."

"So impatient, so demanding." She tsked, shaking her head "What poor manners." Her glibness suddenly evaporated from her face, her features growing cold and serious green eyes narrowed in an icy glare as her voice fell into a hissing whisper. "I am merely a watcher in the dark, a listener in the wind. A keeper. I am also an old, old woman. More than that you don't need to know child."

"What are you doing here?"

She barked out a laugh, smiling once again "Ha ha ha ha. Ohhh but those manners are impeccable: The intruder asking the resident why they're trespassing. You were not quiet in your fall little one. You're simply lucky it was I who found you before some other did."

"Why is that?"

Her voice once again fell into that malicious, hissing whisper. "Well, I haven't dragged your soul from your body yet. That's a good start."

"Don't try it." He growled, priming one of the suits wrist mounted weapons as he did.

Her little smile came back. "Try? If I wished you harm, boy; I'm fairly sure you could not stop me."

She laughed. He did not like this woman. "But let us move on to the true matter at hand here. Should I guess perhaps? Its not often a child of Olympus grants us a visit. Especially not a simple mortal one. Only one thing drew you here yes? Especially so recently. You've come for little Diana?"

"Where is she?"

"Again, so demanding boy. There's no need for it really, I'll happily tell you. I'll even show you."

The floor once again dropped from beneath Bruce's feet and both he and the old lady began to fall, his stomach lurched while the old woman remained perfectly still and stoic, standing straight up as they fell together.

This time when the floor came up to meet him, he was actually able to see it.

He fell on the flagstones with a crash, the full weight of his suit smashing the perfectly cut stone floor as the old woman landed at his side.

"There is your goal boy." She pointed

He stood up, eye lenses focusing on the jutting spike of black stone in the distance. A winding, dark road between him and it.

He looked around him, standing on what could only be a dock. It was round, possibly two hundred feet in diameter, surrounded by a river of seething, black oil, a chain of Black ships came and went, arriving and depositing their charges here.

They looked like withered things, more liken to humanoid wisps of dark smoke than what he suspected them to be.

"Souls." He said without realizing it. "The river styx."

He could hear the unique clink clank of chains coming from them every time they seemed to take a step. Bound for the depths of Hades.

"My..." The woman hissed, a smile in her voice. "-aren't you a smart lad."

He turned, fully facing her. "Why'd you bring me here?"

"Now there's gratitude for you, Helping you get the amazon girl back, and faced with suspicion!" She threw her arms up, exasperated.

"I don't trust you."

"Good." She admitted with a smile. "Shut one's eyes tight or open one's arms wide however, you'll still be the fool."

He glared. He turned and began walking down the cobble stone walkway to the first of the black gates, feeling the woman's eerie green eyes at his back.

She called out to him one last time.

"Only three Gates stand between you boy. Good luck now."

* * *

Bruce walked through the winding road, surrounded on either side by the flowing river Styx, the moaning, wailing figures reaching out from its dark waters before they were gently carried along the current as they stretched out their hands to him.

He could have been walking for ages, the suits temperature control keeping him from feeling virtually any exertion in the walk. His eyes darted this way and that way, and multiple sensors along the suits outer armor shell scanned constantly for some kind of disturbance or incoming attack.

Bot there was nothing, nothing before him, nothing behind him, nothing but the moaning souls and the inky blackness of whatever void lay beyond the distance of his sight.

This world was colorless, blank, grey. It reminded him of the cave, only it was filled with some aura...something almost intangibly subtle.

Despair.

Finally, he came across the first Gate.

Shooting up from the ground like twin slabs of dark granite, it was featureless save for a single slit down the center where the twin gates would part to open.

His eyes glanced over the entire surface , searching for anything. Then, finding no other alternative, he reached forward and pushed with his hand onto the blackened surface.

The Gate opened with the grating sound of stone sliding over stone.

When it fully opened, it revealed...

More road.

Nothing more than more road.

It was as though someone had randomly just decided to dump two stone slabs in the middle of the stretch for no reason whatsoever. Bruce stepped forward, narrowed eyes searching for some clue or some hint that he may have been missing something before he stepped forward.

The moment his boot struck the ground, blinding pain shot up his foot. He screamed from the shock, staggering, it felt as though he'd been shot, twice.

He stepped away, then, after regaining himself and feeling the pain ebb away almost instantly as if nothing happened he checked his armored foot, seeing no damage, and no indication that anything had happened at all.

He took a step forward again, and this time, when the pain came, he was prepared, but it still felt as though he'd just been electrocuted.

With a mental command, a compartment along the suits back opened up, and with a boost of jet thrusters He took to the skies.

It didn't matter, the pain still came, intense and acutely felt throughout his entire body. He barely had the frame of mind to land himself without crashing headfirst onto the ground, or worse yet, the river.

"And so here we are."

Bruce struggled, lifting his head as much as he could to glare at the owner of the familiar voice.

The old woman was standing there, green eyes looking down on his kneeling form with cruel amusement. "You've had your first run in with the road of fire."

"F-Fire?"

"Yes..." She laughed. "I always said it was a little misleading. You expect to see fire on a road named like this but its name solely for the fact that every inch further makes you feel as if you're being burned alive. And guess what?" She chuckled somewhere in her throat. "It gets worse with every single step. The stronger you are, the more it will hurt."

He kept his silence, struggling to listen through the pain that racked his body and made him shake within the armor. He knew it was just magic, that all suit sensors read systems in the green, save for his heart, and that the temperature control technology was keeping him well within human comfort parameters but his mind screamed at him that every nerve in his body was saying that there was _pain._

The old woman kept talking. He struggled to listen.

"The weak, go back quickly, the stupid keep going, and die. The rare ones. Hah...those keep things interesting here. So which will you be? Weak? Stupid? Or Interesting? Two of those options don't really favor your precious princess do they?

_'Diana._' Bruce grit his teeth, fighting through the pain as his fist clenched. He punched the ground beneath them, pushing himself, forcing himself to stand despite the crippling pain. He could swear his skin was being seared off his flesh beneath the armor of the suit.

The old woman put a hand to her chin. Hmming with interest as she watched him take another step forward, and another, and another inching his way down the road of fire.

* * *

Within the heart of this plane, Dianna, princess of the Amazons woke to a harsh, stinging slap.

Her eyes blurred, she tasted copper on her tongue , and an ache through her body as she blinked clarity back to her sight.

Her ears worked fine though.

"Well little princess, so glad to see you awake."

She looked up, her eyes finding that familiar face. A trimmed beard, long dark hair and tanned skin. A handsome veneer to hide the seething rot within.

"Hades." She spat out his name.

"Your memory serves." He chuckled. His eyes lighting up with amusement, though his smile hid something much darker. "So good to know one leaves an impression on such a lovely princess."

He moved to caress her cheek when she jerked her chin away. He smiled, his hand lingering in the open air for a moment before it lowered back down again.

He stepped back and Dianna was allowed her first, unobstructed view of the room.

And on the other side was her battle robes, and her lasso.

Hades noticed where her attention went and smirked. "Oh yes these things. Forgive me my dear but you seemed so uncomfortable in those clothes I just had to get you out of them and into something more...suitable...for your stay here."

The Amazonian seethed, trying not to give thought to the disgusting notion that this thing had undressed her She looked down at herself, a simple white chiton dress hugged her body while her arms were chained to the wall at her side.

"Oh don't worry princess, you'll be keeping your clothing on through your stay here I'm sure. Though, you will be staying for such a very long time."

She said nothing to that. A part of her did hope that her friends would come for her but another part knew that it was just as unlikely. Even if they did decide to brave a confrontation with a God, to get her back, they'd be going after the wrong God.

Hades had her, not Ares.

A wickedly curved knife formed in the Dark God's hand, he smiled a smile that others may have called, almost pleasant before he stabbed her straight into her side, the curved knife slipping through her flesh with laughable ease.

She gasped, burning pain racing up her entire body, drowning out the sensation of him pulling the blade out.

"This knife...is coated in a very rare venom Princess...do you know what it is?" He asked, smiling as she hissed breaths through clenched teeth. "Gorgon blood my dear Diana. Would you like to know what it will do?"

She answered by rushing forward, the chains clinking taught as she pulled her arms forward to attack him while he remained just out of reach.

"It won't kill you my dear." He said smiling, ignoring her outburst. "This toxin does something much different, it will slowly drive you mad. In your human world, it would be powerless really...but here." He gestured around. "Here it holds power, old magic. You should feel honored, none have experienced the effects of gorgon blood in eons. Your mind will be assaulted with visions, lies and shattered dreams. Every regret, every pain you have ever suffered will be brought to the forefront of your thoughts. For the rest...of your immortal life."

"I..." She gasped. "Am going...to kill you."

"You'll find that difficult with that blood in you. You wont even be able to recognize what's real after a day or so." He laughed. "Still, before it kicks in..." Magic flowed through his hand before he touched her skin, burning the punctured flesh until it cauterized and the stink of burning flesh began to invade the room.

Dianna resisted for a moment before she screamed, long and loud as the side of her stomach was slowly burnt by the god of the underworld.

"The thing's you'll experience you'll know to be reality." He smiled. "That will be beyond contestation...I'll make certain of it my dear princess."

* * *

He couldn't breathe...he couldn't see, tears of pure pain seeped from his eyes, his limbs felt like lead, only the strength of the suit kept him partially upright.

Every step sent knives through his limbs, every breath sent needles through his lungs and fire down his throat, his suits bio readings were in the red, his heart beat racing within his chest.

He took another step forward.

He took another step forward, and another, and another...

He fell, crashing to the floor, unmoving as he screamed within his suits helmet.

He lifted his head...and saw a glimering gate of white and gold not ten feet away.

His blood was boiling in his veins, his skin was being peeled, layer by infintismal layer from his muscles, his nerves sang their agony to his brain.

He just needed to cross these last...ten...feet.

His fingers twitched, and a hundred razors crawled up his arms and cut open the skin along his limb from the infinitesimal movement.

He screamed clenching his teeth as he stopped himself.

He. Would. Not. Fail.

They were both getting back.

He pushed himself onto his feet and with five, stumbling, wobbly steps placed his hand on the sealed gateway.

In an instant, the pain vanished. His heart rate slowed as the adrenaline faded. His limbs shook, quaking within his suit as the pounding in his skull faded.

He waited...waited for what must have been entire minutes before his breathing was able to finally calm down.

Leaning against the gate, he sighed. "Any words on this next one?"

"Ohhh." The old woman's cruel, mocking voice answered him. "And here I thought you were just going to barge straight through. What's wrong? Get a little scare there?"

"I know...pain."

"So you do." She laughed. "Your next little test will be less painful...or not. Haha, It'll certainly be something to see. Just remember, your princess is waiting for you on the other side. Must be a comforting little thought for you."

His lip curled, then, without another moment's hesitation he pushed the gates open.

* * *

The stink of magic choked the air and Diana's ribs ached as she fell to the floor in a heap, the manacles had long since been removed, as had her ability to fight. The breath was knocked out of her, the strength had all but abandoned her limbs and blood leaked from the corner of her mouth.

"Just think." The monster's velvet voice reached her as she, for the hundreth time tried to stumble back to her feet. "You're enduring all this...while they're up there...nice and safe...safe because of what you gave up? Safe...while you're here, suffering for them."

She glared, then, found it somewhere in herself to smile. "What? Is this the part that you try to get me to join you?"

"Join me?" Hades laughed as he came within less than an arms distance from her. "Oh my dear, little girl." He tsked before delivering an uppercut that connected right between her eyes

Diana's eyes flashed with stars, and her movement was stopped only by the back of her head smashing against the far wall of her cell.

Blood trailed down her forehead onto her right eye, trailing down her face before she felt the Olympian's boot slam into her stomach. She coughed blood. Doubling over, Hades let her fall to the floor. As she coughed, and tries to take in a proper breath she felt hot blood trailing slowly down the back of her neck. Somewhere in her mind she realized the back of her head was probably bleeding too.

Her vision blurred and didnt clear as Hades continued to laugh above her. "You joining me is the last thing I'm concerned about.

A hand gripped her clothing hauling her up.

She groaned, fighting off a bout of nausea and dizziness. Did she have...a concussion?

When she opened her eyes again, she found the smiling face of Bruce wayne leering cruely down at her.

Her eyes went wide, adrenaline surged through her limbs in a bout of pure _fear_ that had left her stomach lurch and her heart stop.

"_**No!"  
**_

She pushed him away, stumbling backwards as a small piece of her dress' shoulder ripped, still clutched in his grip.

She felt her back hit the wall and the pounding in her skull increase a hundred fold.

Her eyes blurred again, and her stomach twisted and sickened with every breath as the world spun around her.

"Ahh." She heard, echoing around her distorted senses. "I see that blood is starting to take effect."

She reached, blindly grasping, fumbling for something to hold onto as her knees wobbled and up became down and the room moved around her.

"This is getting interesting. Don't you agree my dear?"

* * *

Crime alley...

It looks the same...

It looks exactly the same...

He knows its just an illusion, some trick the magic of this place is pulling on him. That he's not back here, that he's not eight years old again, standing between his parents, holding their hands, walking down this, yet to be infamous, stretch of road.

The snow crunches beneath his shoes, like it did that day. He sniffles, because his nose is stuffed from the cold just like it did. His breath condenses in front of his face. He feels his mother's warm, glove covered hand, and his father's bare one, he tries to wiggle free of his dad's hand.

He's big...he doesn't need to be held by the hand anymore.

If only he'd known. If only...

He would have never let their hands go ever again.

Then...he comes out...same as always...a faceless thing from the shadows holding a gun.

"Gimme the money!" The thing screams...it still fills him with fear, even now...even now when he knows its not power he hears in his voice...its desperation...when he knows its not a thing in the shadows. Its Joe Chill, barely with enough guts to hold the gun in his shaking hands let alone meet his victims in the light.

He's still scared.

He knows what's coming next, he knows it and he screams, trapped in his body, eyes acting like nothing more than windows, limbs doing nothing more than making him feel even more caged.

His father steps closer, carefully handing him his wallet. He made no move...nothing threatening...

So why? Why?

There's a crash, a trashcan tipping over somewhere in the alley.

Then there's the _Bang_!

Why? Why Why Why **WHY!**

He screams, so does his mother, rushing to her husband, his father, she yells out his name.

There's another bang.

His heart is slamming against his temples, all sense abandons him, he doesn't notice the gun, pointing right at him, shaking in Joe's weak, terrified hands. All he notices is the blood. His father, shot straight through the chest, his mother, through the throat...

The blood is pooling on the floor, his mother's clothing stained bright red.

Joe turns...ready to run.

Bruce roars.

He jumps forward, no longer eight years old. No longer the young, weak little boy who could do nothing more than watch.

His hands clench around Joe's throat, the criminal shoots, bullets bouncing off of armor plating.

His fist cocks back, and with a roar, that tears at his throat it smashes forward.

He punches and punches, ignoring Joe's pleas, ignoring as his voice goes from tearful, to gurgling as his face swells, as he starts to choke on his own blood.

He throws him, slams him against the brick wall that frames the alley.

There's always been a line that's never been crossed, always been one rule he would never break.

He's not sure if he can keep that rule tonight.

He stalks forward, the knuckles of his armor dripping with blood and torn off bits of skin.

Joe whimpers, falling to the floor as his body curls in on itself.

**'Yes...be afraid.'** Bruce thinks. **'Be afraid...like I was...like my mother was. You'll know pain. You'll know fear. You'll know...Retribution.'**

He reaches forward, and Joe pushes himself a little further back, into the narrow glare of the streetlight that just peers over Batman's shoulder.

The face that Bruce finds makes him stop, shock seizing his chest.

_'Jason!'_

His face his swollen, his lip split open, one eye sealed shut, the other blood shot with ruptured blood vessels, he wheezes. His breathing is horrible.

Bruce looks down on his hands. No longer armored. Pale. Clutching a bloodied crowbar.

He laughs. Its a familiar laugh. Its not his...but it may as well be.

He raises the crowbar, and keeps swinging.

* * *

She clutches at her skull, fingers pressing against her head as her mind spirals beyond her grasp.

The walls melted, faces slithered before her vision, she couldn't breathe enough air, couldn't feel the warmth in her limbs, her whole body shivered and burned at once.

Thorns pressed through her eyes, razors through her breasts, acid dripped, burning slowly through her ears.

She could feel herself, but she could not feel her limbs, random, unpredictable bouts of pain running spasmodic through her, not for seconds but what must have been centuries on end.

Hades stood nearly on the other side of the room. Watching, smiling. The dark god saw the Amazonian princess laying on the floor of the dungeon, writhing in agony as her mind made her delusions real.

Slowly his eyes traveled to the pieces of confiscated armor that were propped up against the oposite wall, and onto one particular enchanted rope.

A dark, interested light shone behind his eye.

* * *

He let go of the body, whoever it was, Jason, Joe, it didn't matter. Whoever it was was dead, the crowbar dripped with scarlet and grey, his fingers clutched at it before he forced them to open, letting the thing clatter to the floor.

_'Your fault_' The insidious voice hissed in his ear.

_'All your fault. All of it.'_

He clutched at his helmet, tightening his fingers over his skull as though trying to drown out the voice.

_**'Get out...get out of my head**_'

_'They're all going to die...each and every one of them.'_

He heard a crash, he turned, no longer was he standing in the bowels of crime alley in that fateful night, but rather in the halls of Wayne Manor.

Bane was there, a hole punched right through his wall. He smiled as he walked in, closer and closer to...Alfred!

"**No!" **He heard himself scream rushing forward, but too late, Bane's fist came down and he saw Alfred's broken body sailing across the room before the image shattered.

There was a gunshot, and Barbara fell into his arms, reddish hued hair falling over his arm and chest like a curtain of velvet.

A bullet hole was in her head, trailing blood down her face.

"Hehehehehehe" He looked up and the chalky, horrid visage of Joker's grinning face stared right back at him

"_**It's not real." **_He repeated to himself as he set Barbara down. **_"None of it is real!"_**

'Hahahahahaha! You sure about that Bats? Hehehehe, and who knows, it may not be real now...but I can always go back and finish the job."

With a roar of fury, Bruce hurled himself at the apparition, his fist smashing into the Joker's face with the sound of shattering glass as once again, everything turned itself apart, changing and rearranging.

Glass shards rained down around him and Bruce didn't even have time to look up before the body slammed onto the earth infront of him.

Richard...

Blood spattered out of the back of his head, a bullet hole in his stomach.

"Don't you see Bat." He looks up,, and Harvey's standing there, smoking gun in hand, glass cracking beneath his shoes as he stands right on the ledge of the windowpane. "It's all on you...you put us all here, every one of us."

Bruce remains quiet, repeating, _reminding_ himself that none of this is real...none of it can be real.

"We all walk the road of Fate now. It can only end in one of two ways; And guess what."

Harvey flips his coin, the '_ping'_ is loud to Bruce's ears even beneath the armor.

He doesnt catch it, the coin tumbles and tumbles ever downward until it land's at the Dark Knight's feet, over Dick's spreading pool of blood.

The burnt, scratched side of the trick coin stares up at the sky.

"Their luck isn't gonna hold out forever. Neither will yours."

Snow falls now, not glass, and not rain. He's no longer standing on a street with Tim's corpse laying infront of him.

He stands at a graveyard.

The tombstones jut out from the ground all around him.

All of them.

Their graves lie at his feet, and only one hole lies empty.

His.

Is this what waits for them? What's left at the end of the road?

Was he leading them down this road?

He knew it with clarity, before he'd even entered this place.

Yes.

He dragged kids..._kids_ out into the street to fight criminals.

This had been his fight, his vendetta, no one else. He had no right to do this, no right to drag them into this...they were going to die. They were all going to die because he'd been too selfish...too stupid...too blind.

Dick was the only one...but Jason...Barbara...Tim...

He should have told them all to go _home_ anywhere else other than the rooftops. To families, friends, even their damn school.

He never should have involved them in this. Never let them involve themselves.

He was leading them straight to their graves.

"It doesn't have to be this way."

His breath catches in his throat. Eyes widen behind his helmet, his head turns, and he doesn't believe she's standing there.

She's as beautiful as ever, long dark hair, white flowing dress. Crystalline blue eyes. She's gorgeous as she floats down to him, hovering just half a foot or so off the ground.

"Dian-"

Her hand reaches forward, caressing his cheek. He jerks away, surprised as he raises his hand, his bare hand.

The armor is gone.

When he looks back at her they're standing in the middle of Wayne Manor, hard wood floors beneath his bare feet, he's dressed in a black shirt, gray sweatpants.

He looks around, eyes swiveling this way and that way fire burns merrily in the fireplace, Tim is sitting across from the TV. I can hear dick in the other room. He's talking...he's talking to Barbara, he's making plans for next week with her.

I can hear Alfred, humming a tune...he's safe...they're all safe.

They're all here.

Her arms wrap around me, her chin rests on my shoulder. My fingers go around her wrist, holding her there.

"This is how it can be Bruce...all of us here, all of us safe."

She tightens her hold, her warmth flowing into me, her words like a song in her silk voice.

"Gotham...at peace, no more crime, no more joker. None of it. Just you...with your family...with me."

He tightens his hold on her arm. Closing his eyes, keeping hold of the one thing he knew to be true.

"You're not real."

"It doesn't matter." She promises. "I can be real for you, this can be whatever you want it to be. I can be yours Bruce. And you can be mine. You can finally have the family you've always craved. Don't you want that?"

He thinks then nods. "I do." He holds her arm tighter, falls into her embrace.

Then he turns, twisting her arm over his head as he swivels fully to face her beautiful, shocked face.

"But you're not really her." He says firmly.

The armor is back, black layers of steel between him and this world of magic and illusion.

Her hand is in his grip, holding her tightly. A compartment in his free forearm opens, a nozzle emerges with a flicker of red flame burning in front of the opening.

"And I don't settle for second best."

Her features twist and curl, fury marring her perfect face.

His hand shoots forward, and fire swathes the illusion infront of me, swallowing it whole.

Hehear it try to scream in Diana's voice.

Then the Illusion shatters, Wayne mannor crumbles away like dust in a sandstorm.

And he's standing in the middle of a courtyard, the white gold gate behind him, wide open. A black iron one in front of him.

He straightens, the flamethrower nozzle folding back into his arm.

His eyes trail over the courtyard, counting.

One...two...three.

Three are standing between him, and his last gate.

* * *

He fingered and turned the gold-spun rope in his grip looking at it with careful deliberation as Dianna squirmed and moaned in her pain.

"The golden rope of Hephaestus." He mused. "Capable of compelling truth from even the most black-hearted of souls."

"But what happens I wonder..." He continued. "When one...simply cant stop lying. When their minds just keep...making things up...that aren't real?"

He adjusted his grip on the magical rope, looking at the Amazonian princess. "I believe humans have come up with an adequate turn of phrase for something like this. What happens when an unstoppable force, meets, an immovable object?'

He twisted his hand, and with a lurch of magical energy Dianna was lifted from the floor, held upright, hovering a foot or so off the ground.

He gave the thing a few test spins before finally lashing it out.

His smile grew wide as Dianna screamed, long and loud the lasso was wrapped around her arm.

It crackled like a live wire, sparks and lights flashing before his eyes.

She pulled, the rope tightened, he removed his magic, allowing her to fall as her voice went raw from the screaming.

Finally, he reached forward, pulling the lasso off her.

A fine, thin scar of singed skin was coiled around her forearm, the flesh rough and calloused with the burn.

"Oh my...wont this simply be sweet irony. The weapon given to you by the gods, to protect you...will be used to destroy you."

He lifted her again, magical energy holding her aloft in the air.

"Now let me apologize in advance. This might sting a bit my dear."

* * *

Well this is obviously chapter 14, just one more before the Epilogue.

Hope you're all enjoying it so far.

Either way R&R, Next chapter will be out soon hopefully.


	15. Chapter 15

Bruce takes a step forward, the three keep their place.

He walks down the walkway, step by step, watching as they seem to just grow with every foot of distance that vanishes between them.

He finally steps into the courtyard, a half circle with the black iron gate at the far end.

Even with the suit, adding nearly a foot to his height, these things are still taller, maybe eight and a half or nine feet.

Their plate armor is black, thin markings carved with delicate care into each plate of steel.

One holds a single headed axe, its massive blade would dwarf any human, even on this thing's shoulder Bruce has to wonder just how strong it is to be able to lift it with such ease.

Another, is holding a halberd, a long pole-arm weapon with a curved blade at the top. Get rid of the pole and put in a hilt and it'd be holding a curved sword instead.

The last, is holding a bow.

The most interesting thing though, is their helmets.

The helmets were forged to resemble the snarling faces of dogs.

Three dogs...Cerberus...the Guardian of the Underworld.

He takes one more step forward.

_'Abandon hope-'_

_'-All ye-'_

_'Who enter-'_

_**'-here.'**_

Three voices, unifying at the end, speaking to him telepathically.

Could they read minds? Or just project their thoughts to each other and to others.

If they could do either one, they were going to be difficult to fight alone. If they could do both, it'd be impossible.

Still...he never backed down from a challenge before.

He took another step.

In a flash, the one with the bow had an arrow notched in the string, pulling back on the length of wood that could have probably taken the pressure of a truck to bend.

The arrow, flew through the air, nearly the size of a broomstick, its speed was startling.

As was the speed that Bruce used to catch it, the shaft of wood giving a sound like the scrape of a knife carving into its surface before it was stopped in the suits grip before even scratching the armors' chest piece.

The Dark Knight took another step.

This time, the axe user and the halberd wielder charged as the other one notched another arrow.

Bruce took his stance, muscles tensing, the motors of his suit whirring, the analytic computer activating all combat parameters and protocols in conjunction with Bruce's bio-readings.

His hands shot out to either side, aimed at both.

Fire emerged from one, ice from the other.

A howl, hollow as though the thing were trying to make a sound with no vocal chords, emerged from the one wielding the halberd, the one being encased in ice, the other pushed through the flames as though nothing impeded him.

Bruce stepped back as the axe smashed into the place where his foot used to be and the arrow whizzed past the spot where his face had been.

The arrow still in his hand found its way into the armored behemoths face, shattering with a crack of wood.

He twisted the thing in his grip, the now pointed end, next to his thumb before he drove it up, through the folds of metal into what would be this thing's stomach.

Another hollow howl, it roared as it pulled the axe free from the ground and swung again, Bruce ducked, turning on his heel to catch the halberd wielding warrior's weapon as he forcefully escaped from his icy prison, breaking through ice almost a foot thick as though it was rotten plaster.

Bruce grunted, feeling the strain on his own muscles as the suits faux enhancements struggled against the giant's strength.

The twang of a bowstring warned him to the approaching threat, with a thought the jets on his back activated.

He took to the sky on wings of fire, he locked the suits' finger joints, making his grip, literally as hard as steel. He soared up, feeling only a momentary resistance before the weapon left his enemies fingertips, remaining in his as the arrow sailed under his feet.

He cut off the jets, falling down, he brought the Halberd with him in a brutal downward stroke.

The giant stepped aside, dodging his own weapon as its edge cleaved through stone work and mortar.

Bruce brought the shaft of the weapon up, leaving the blade in the ground as the Axe wielder swung again.

The impact sent the force rattle up his arms and vibrating through his body, he twisted himself to avoid the other giant's approaching fist, and skirted free of the kick that followed it, coiling his arm around the leg and keeping it tight to his side.

He moved the weapon, again, once more placing it with his free hand between himself and the axe wielding giant before he jumped back, the giants foot still caught under his arm, pulling him forward into a split. The sound of groaning steel loud in his ears as the thing came smashing down on the floor.

Something struck his shoulder, the warning lights in his suit going red for a moment as Bruce noticed the large opening, between wires and mesh, sparks of electricity emerged from his suits faux skin.

His jetpack activated again, thrusters whining before he took off, the Halberd sweeping one leg out from under the axe user as the bow wielder sought to notch another arrow.

The Halberd came up, and with the sound of rending steel the blade punched straight into the chest of the bowman.

It howled and screeched, one fist coming up as it spun around and punching Bruce asside, the momentum of his flight making him loose his grip on the halberd and fly past the armored behemoth.

He curled his body, shutting off the jetpack as he fell and recovered with a deft roll.

He turned, just in time to see the Giant pull the weapon from its chest and the other two march up behind it, taking up their flanking positions and the disarmed one retrieving his weapon from his fellow Giant.

Bruce grit his teeth, the bow wielder didn't even look injured.

He stood, ready to fight again when an all to familiar voice reached them.

"Oh I think that is quite enough."

The three armored behemoths bowed, descending to one knee and letting their dog like heads fall forward.

The old woman walked out from behind them.

Bruce grit his teeth, stepping forward. "Enough games. Who the hell are you!"

She smirked, shrugging. "Like I said boy. I am a watcher...a listener...a keeper. It doesn't matter."

"Why did you order them to stop?" He asked.

"Oh but your gratitude is overwhelming." She chuckled. "If you must know these guardians are powerful, the secret to their destruction was lost long ago. Hack them to pieces, burn them, freeze them, toss them into the river, they will always return and always keep coming. You would have fought, as valiantly as the other fools who tried to get into the Underworld ahead of time but eventually they would have killed you. And I quite frankly need you alive."

"For what?"

"Did you think I helped you out of the goodness of my heart? Haha. No boy, I have my own agenda and it just so happens to coincide with yours. You want your princess back, I want Hades. Things are simple yes?"

"Why haven't you gotten him then."

"Ahh, now that's not so simple..." She still smiled, but there is venom in her eyes now. "Hades has managed to create a field. Something that keeps me and my own out. As long as he can maintain his focus, the barrier will stand, and we cannot enter his palace. But you can. He holds no more power over you than I do in this place."

Bruce stayed quiet, letting her continue.

She reached into her sleeve, pulling out a red, ruby like dagger from the folds. "Here" She tossed it, watching him catch it. "You were able to cut my Cerberus head which proves you have some skill." She smiled. "Cut Hades with that blade, and his focus will be broken for a moment. That'll be all we need. We will handle the rest and you can get your princess out."

"What makes you think I'll even fight Hades?"

"Hahahaha!" She threw her head back with her laughs, full blown and mocking. "Really? Do you think yourself so fortunate that he does not know you're here? No mortal. He knows you come. And he knows I help you. But he does not know about that dagger I promise you. When you confront him-and you will-" She laughed somewhere in her chest. "Play on his arrogance, use his pride and strike in the most opportune moment. It doesn't matter where the dagger cuts his flesh as long as it does so. Even the smallest wound will mean your salvation."

Bruce looked down at the thing, it was fairly long, about the size of one of Alfreds fish cutting knives. It half looked like it was made from stone, its edges jagged and its body full of ridges and irregularities.

"You want me to cut a god with a piece of glass."

"I expect you to manage with whatever you have available." She answered before gesturing to the fortress. "Now I suggest you run along. If I know Hades, and I do, your little princess won't be lasting much longer.

* * *

She _burned_.

Like acid sizzling over her skin.

The lasso, the weapon given to her by the gods was coiled around her wrists, spilling down to touch at her skin with searing heat.

It hurt to breathe, it hurt to think.

Her eyes would open to oily shadows and dancing colors, all marked by the touch of pain as her skull pounded with his disgusting voice.

She was Diana. Princess of the Amazons. Peerless among her sisters, and one of the most powerful mortals on earth.

And she wanted nothing more than help.

She wanted her comrades, her sisters, her fellow league members, her friends -_Anyone_- to help.

_WHERE ARE YOU!_ She thought with despair, sinking ever more into this miasmic thrall as the venom coursed through her veins and the pain of the lasso seared through her flesh.

A part of her, growing fainter, weaker, knew that they were not coming. That they could not come. That she was beyond their reach now. Beyond the reach of even her Gods. And in the absence of this small piece, of rationality desperation grew. Hopeless desperation. A clawing need for her friends, for _rescue _that gnawed at her.

How long could the God of the Underworld torture an Immortal enemy?

_Please...please...please..._

* * *

He clung to the shadows as best he could, winding snaking corridors and archways of jagged black stone, as dark as obsidian and just as sharp, hid him well, though he hadn't seen or heard a single creature throughout.

The suit was heavy, bulkier than he liked. It wasn't made for stealth, but he managed.

The hallways were, confusing, odd. This place wasn't built by men or for them. The angles were _wrong_ in a way.

It was not a natural structure but it very well could pass as one in certain spots. As though the earth itself was bent to form these shapes and contours against its will.

The place was labyrinthine. Massive from the outside, and from within even moreso. It might very well take him _days_ to find Diana if he didn't find-

The ground abandoned his feet in an instant, the whole world dropping out from under him as he fell the suits systems flaring into the red as cold crept across his skin. The touch of magic the finger's of death curling about his neck as blackness swallowed him.

His skin tingled, his form becoming globulous, unreal, he couldn't see but all other senses sizzled with alien and unfamiliar sensations.

Then he was spat back out into the world.

He fell with a crash, the scraping of steel on stone ringing through his ears as he caught himself on hands and knees.

"Ahh. The great Batman."

He looks up, feeling the crest at his shoulder armor, pressing against the armor at the back of his neck.

He recognizes Hades. The God is still exactly the same as he was when he marched out of the gates beneath Themyschira, when he still looked human at any rate. That grotesque rat like face hadn't yet overtaken him this time around.

Bruce stands, Hades does the same, parting his hands and bringing them back together in over exaggerated claps as he walks down the five or so steps from his elevated throne. "A mortal man passing through the gates of the underworld to rescue the fair maiden. They would be singing songs of you back when mortals properly recognized their champions."

He stands as tall as he can as Hades comes forward, and even with his suit adding nearly a foot to his six foot frame he's barely reaching the God's neck.

"I'm not the first." He answers. Many ancient cultures depicted descents into the underworld.

"No." He says, though Bruce notices his smile is just a tad bit tighter, a tad bit more forced. "But we all know how such stories end. All in one form of failure or another."

He wasn't wrong. In almost every depiction in every culture, it always ended in tragedy. Always in failure.

"I aim to be the exception."

The dark deity barked out a laugh, throwing his head back completely. His barrel chest rose with his perfectly fitting armor, the laughter growing a little in pitch before, faster than Bruce could react, the God Backhanded him across the face.

The force was incredible, it drove him to his knees, and sent his skull throbbing. He'd taken blows from crowbars that were less dizzying.

The floor spun in place, and it was only through the ringing in his ears that he could vaguely hear Hades words.

"You should learn some humility."

His feet feel like jello when he moves to stand, and only as he's beginning to reach them does he notice the angry crack through the eyelens of his helmet.

He stands as straight as he can, his lip curling beneath the mask as Hades stares down at him, as amused at the show as a man might be at the growling of a small dog.

"Still." He continued as though nothing odd had ever occurred. "You've impressed me. I'll give you leave to go for that alone."

"I'm not leaving without Diana."

The God leaned down, close to the Dark Knights face. Half his instincts told him to pull the shard, to try plunging it into his neck now. But he stopped. This was not some back yard macho man who thought he was the untouchable king of the hill.

This was the god of the underworld he would catch his hand and probably break it before he even mannaged to draw the shard from its compartment.

"_Play on his arrogance, use his pride and strike in the most opportune moment."_

"The Princess." He said, still smiling, but that smile and that look now had a very dangerous edge to it. "Is mine."

"Then I challenge you for her."

His lips almost curled into a sneer before they spread to a smile. "I am not my braggart and foolish nephew. You cannot taunt me like the God of war. You are beginning to test my patience and my mercy Mortal."

"I'm not leaving here without Diana." He repeated. It was simple truth. "So you might as well kill me."

Either he walked out with her or none of them walked out.

"And prove you don't have it in you to challenge one of the mortals that beat you twice already."

And his hand rose again, but this time he was ready. Hades was fast, but Bruce had fought people that were nearly as fast as Flash in his lifetime.

The hand came down, and Bruce's feet left the ground, his body curling over the descending arm in a perfect arm bar lock as his legs wrapped around the bicep and interlocked at Hades chest.

The god struggled, the suit strained, all strength stress sensors quickly rising as Bruce struggled to maintain his hold, forcing the Olympian to roll forward until he finally had him where he could get the most leverage.

"_Even the smallest wound will mean your salvation."_

He couldn't reach the shard from here, the moment he let go Hades would brute force his way out of the hold.

As it was he was barely holding on, unable to break his opponents arm even with the suit's enhanced strength.

He let go, rolling back as Hades roared in raw, brute anger. His whole features shifting, becoming more beastial as his eyes bled into a horrible red.

Both men reached their feet and the jetpack along the suit's back roared to life with the high pitched whine of engines as he surged forward , arms crossed above his head to take the blow.

Hades caught him by the waist, his arms slamming into the Underworld rulers chest with the force of a speeding truck. Bruce felt the pressure at his waist increase, the coil of the Gods fingers now becoming uncomfortable and quickly growing more and more painful.

He punched his two hands up interlocking the fingers in a brutal uppercut that smacked into Hades chin, the wrist mounted weaponry activating a moment later before ice and fire were both thrown at his face.

Hades screamed, his face obscured by a cloud of steam before he brought Bruce up, and smashed him back down into the ground with a bone crushing smash. Bruces shoulders and neck took the worst of it, the pain flaring down his spine so horribly that for an instant he feared he'd broken his neck, even as he screamed out in pain.

Multiple system warnings flashed across his face as he moved to stand, slower than before, a servo motor in one arm acting up now, not letting him move his left arm much.

He brought his right up, eye clicking the icon for explosive batarangs as the hand mounted catapult fired over and over and over again. Punching out a staccato of small explosions as batarang after batarang struck over and over again leaving a hazy black cloud.

Then the cloud surged forward, a gray furred claw plunging out of it and grabbing Bruce by his face.

The billionaire barely had time to suck in a surprised breath before he felt his back, his neck, his shoulders and the back of his skull smashed down into the ground.

The first time he felt his head spin, trying in vain to raise his hands to grab at Hades wrist

The second time he felt boneless, every nerve dying away in a moment of horrifying impotence.

The third time he was certain he was about to die.

"_**YOU DARE!"**_

And then Bruce saw the monster's face hissing and drooling, its inhuman eyes burning as they stared down at him?

"_**IN MY DOMAIN!"**_

He lifted him again, ready to smash him back down into the ground and Bruce didn't think, he only reacted, activating the suits entire power supply matrix, opening every pathway for energy that could power an entire city block for a week, and sending it through the whole suit like a giant conductor.

Hades screamed, and Bruce forced the suit to obey his commands, even as it began to loose all functionality, opening the compartment he reached in, grasping at the shard with a desperate grip before plunging it into the hand that still grasped at his skull as the suit self locked all power conduits to avoid full shut down.

He blinked, and he was no longer staring at the inside of Hades hand, she was standing there, the old woman. Her and a hundred more figures, all robed in black as she smiled down at him.

"Yes...you are very interesting." She chuckled.

With more effort than he ever thought would be needed, Bruce raised his head, looking, finding Hades still where he'd last been, kneeling on the ground, his bleeding hand gripping empty air, surrounded by a legion of faceless masked figures in black.

"_**You..." **_The Olympian hissed, his bleeding fist clenching as the shard was pushed out of his flesh.

Bruce struggled to stand, the entire suit grinding and complaining like a rusty door hinge, servo motors locking and whirring as they tried to force through the damage.

As he reached his feet, the dark shadows around him parted, allowing one through, one cradling a very familiar, very injured princess.

The Dark Knight stepped forward, one of the suits legs nearly locking mid motion, making him stumble. Then he realized that pain was flaring through his hip, a pulled muscle or something he could only imagine. Or hope. The adrenaline was still high, but the moment that was gone, a sprain was something he prayed for in favor of not having a torn ligament or a broken bone.

The robed humanoid placed her onto the floor, bowing low as Bruce came forward, and with each step his anger, his guilt and his pain at the sight of how injured she was drove itself through his chest like sharp knives.

"My men have cured her of her poison." The old woman's words came to him,and an impact onto his shoulder brought his eyes to the golden lasso tossed onto him like a discarded cloth.

He looked over his shoulder at her, though her green eyes were fixed on Hades as she spoke. The god shook with palpable rage, still kneeling on the floor with a seething, boiling fury.

"I suggest you take her and go child. Its time for the adults to settle things." She said, smiling as she cracked her neck.

He didn't protest, Diana's safety was more important, her safety and her health. These two could kill each other for all he cared.

He picked her up, the suits motor's protesting at the added weight to their already damaged and overtaxed systems.

She groaned, unconscious as her head lolled limply. If he could not see her chest moving with her breaths he would swear she was dead.

He pushed his way through the dark figures that now crowded the hallway, packed to the point of impossibility. But never the less they moved aside, parting like fish.

* * *

She watched him leave out the corner of her eye. Smiling as her faithful made way. They would guide him out of here. And even if they did not. He would find his way.

_**'Persephone.' **_The name was delivered like a curse, loathing laced in every single syllable as the God turned his demonic gaze onto her.

She smiled, those poisonous lips taking on a grotesque parody of human elation. "Yes husband...I am here to continue the judgment you managed to slip through so long ago."

He stood, and the underworld quaked around her, demons and thralled souls and damned creatures crawling out of whatever muck they'd been hiding behind at his call.

"_**No...You will not. I am the master here. I am the lord of the Underworld! Master of the dead! Devourer of Souls! I am Hades!"**_

_'Ahh but you forget one thing dear husband._

"I am your jailor!"

His face scrunches up in fury and the shadows moved as one, each drawing a blade in the same instant, in the same motion. None a millisecond late or early as they each speak at the exact same time with one voice.

_'We who are Dead shall bear Death.'_

_So that you who are Damned shall stay Damned.'_

The old words. The old Oath. She felt her vigor return. Her wrinkles fading, her silver hair turning dark, black, the sickly pale pallor of her skin becoming healthier as the facade faded away.

But her eyes were the same. Just as green. Just as cold. Just as unnatural.

The beasts came, crawling down from the walls, screeching and blabbering much as they had when they crawled their way out and into the Mortal realm.

Her smile grew wider before she raised her lips to the heavens and shouted-

_**'For the Living!'**_

* * *

Holy hell am I late. To all those who follow this story, I apologize for the delay. As you may or may not know I recently finished a very big project, which had been occupying my attention and after I was done I took a bit of a break.

But I'm back now, (more or less) and this story has about one chapter left for its completion so it will probably be my next update within a week or two so I can call this story done.

I realize the fight with Hades might be short, but I personally would find it highly unbelievable for Bruce to have a prolonged fight against the ruler of the Underworld. Fact is, he's mortal, Hades is a god that could solo half the Justice League in the animated series and has been built up to be rather MORE powerful in this story as well.

This was quick action where Bruce tried to capitalize on surprise more than anything else, and surprise wears off quickly.

Anyway, next chapter is the conclusion to this story, Bruce and Diana's escape from the Underworld. Hopefully I won't disappoint.


	16. Chapter 16

The underworld writhed and shuddered all around him. Like some great beast rumbling to full wakefulness after a long, long sleep. Bruce glanced around as his feet pounded the stone that made up the courtyard of Hades fortress, grotesqueries and freakish creatures seemed to bleed out of the very stone, turning everything to a nightmare landscape of garish colors and howling beasts.

The shadows moved as well, elongated, dark humanoids, each identical to the one next to them, wreathed in shrouds of dark, long and spindly thin, their blades were the only thing that stood out, flashing and carving through freakish hides as dark blood spilled across the surface of the underworld.

The whole place shuddered, like the rumbling of an earthquake. But different, as though the plane itself was reacting to the fury around him.

More and more warning runes flashed across his visor, Bruce knelt, gingerly holding the still semi conscious Diana in his arms as he blink-clicked the various commands.

With a hiss of venting air pressure, the bulk of the jetpack disengaged, disgorging itself off his shoulders with a crash. Now useless weaponry and non vital pieces of heavy armor plating falling away as well to conserve the suits scarcely remaining power.

He cradled Diana's head, turning her to him as her eyes fluttered with disorientation.

"Diana." He called, the grille of his helmet making him louder than what he wanted his voice to be.

Now, as he looked at her, she was a sorry state, a dark bruise was forming along the underside of her jaw, dark rings circled her eyes, her skin was pallid and soaked with sweat, parts of her hair matted with dried blood.

He pulled one sleeve up, the tell tale markings of manacles bruised her wrists, tugging at her shirt revealed more bruising along her stomach.

And there, wrapped around her stomach and coiling around her whole body from what he could tell was a strange burn like mark, ending at her cheek like some grotesque vine.

His chest went tight, and Bruce felt his lips tighten with barely restrained emotion.

She groaned, like a drunk throwing off a hangover thrashing weakly in his grip as she shook her head.

"Diana can you hear me?"

He saw her lips moving, and only because of that did he manage to hear her near intelligible voice as she shook her head. '_No, No, No.'_

He licked his lips beneath the mask, his worry increasing.

He shook his head, deciding to worry about that later. First he had to get her out of here. Get her to safety.

He lifted her again, stepping over his discarded equipment before sprinting across the courtyard.

The demons howled and gibbered, the scent of mortal souls driving the wild and into a maddened frenzy.

Bruce saw them as he ran, hacking and striking at the shadowy humanoids with the glittering swords. Dozens died, and dozens more poured right on, every shadow that they stabbed and struck disolved into wisps of grainy black smoke. Bruce wasn't sure if they were truly dead or merely reforming somewhere else, he didn't know and he didn't care. He had what he came for.

But the creatures cared, they did everything they could to reach him, pushing past their enemies and running straight for him and the Princess.

The first one made it, a squat horrid thing with eight eyes and four legs, nearly its entire body just one giant mouth trying to bite them.

With a draw and a lunge, a bladed batarang was lodged between its eyes, dark blood spurting from the wound as the creature jowled and gibbled, thrashing on its four feet like some dying dog before it fell over.

Bruce tried to adjust his grip again on Diana, seeking to continue his interrupted escape, but there was no such luck, the drop had now become a breach as the demons poured through as fast as they could, clawing at the air as they came closer in a mad dash.

He knelt, setting Diana down before drawing two more razor edged batarangs, holding them in each hand as he stood over the princess.

Their blood was hot where it reached him, seeping through the thinner plates and tri-weave clothing

Bruce had been in fights before. Many of them, with many people...He'd been in _battles_ before, with beasts and powers that could obliterate normal men. He'd fought every time with all the strength he could to defend Gotham, The league and Earth.

But this was something else entirely. The Bruce Wayne standing here, in this dark pit with shadows everywhere, souls and demons howling for his spirit was not the same Bruce Wayne from above.

Because he was not defending Gotham, or Earth, or the League.

He was defending Diana.

The Bruce Wayne who fought here fought like some beast. A man possessed, hacking and spinning with brutal kicks and slashes that crushed bone and sliced open flesh. Their hot, near burning blood spattered over the whole suit before a blow finally struck true.

It came suddenly, smashing at the top of his head with the ringing of steel making him pause long enough for another to strike, then another, and another.

Bruce felt the slide of a blade slash into his shoulder, the creature's sheer brute strength allowing it to cleave through the armor and reinforced weave of the undersuit to draw red blood.

He saw another creature's grotesque, spindly limb reaching for Diana, his uninjured hand lashing out to stab the Batarang into both the limb and the stone beneath, pinning it there.

Suddenly, flashing blades flew out of the black, bright white amidst the backdrop of writhing shadow as the demons burned and died.

And the shadows moved again, striking at the demons, ignoring him as though he were not even there, pushing the beasts back beneath an endless tide of undead wraiths.

Bruce grunted, cradling his bleeding arm with pain, trying to hurry as the soundless ghosts pushed back the demons. Who knew how long that would last. He ignored his body's protests, the pain now creeping up on him, too much for adrenaline to fully blot out as he reached for the blood soaked amazonian princess.

* * *

He reached the entryway, its gates gaping wide before him, the three Cerberus heads holding their weapons tight, neither moved nor perturbed by the chaos around the plane of Hades as they remained at their post, ever watchful.

He rushed past them, barely glancing at their monolithic forms before something made him pause, stop, the chime of a bell ringing through his ears before he turned, looking over his shoulder.

Persephone was standing there, slightly infront of the Cerberus Guardians, her small body a stark contrast to their hulking statures.

She laughed, green eyes glittering unnaturally. Her now black hair and smooth olive skin granting her a poisonous, wicked beauty where before there was only cold venom. "Hah, I was right. You are an interesting one aren't you boy?"

"Shouldn't you be indisposed?" He asked, turning his body to face her, even as he slid back, away from her, from Cerberus, from Hades, further from them and closer to the exit, where Fate had said the rift would be weakest.

She smiled, examining her hand and fingernails as though they were fascinating. "You mortals need to learn that there's more to the world than your quaint perspective. Why be only in one place at a time? Why not in two, or three? Your minds and bodies are such limited things."

She straightened looking back at him. "And do not overestimate your importance. This is but a shard, a fragment I left behind just for you."

"What do you want?"

"Just a token of gratitude from my part lad. The boy, Fate, has a paupers skills for the witchsight. So I'll grant you a little something further and tell you this. Your actions have drawn your death very close to you now. Can you feel her embrace yet?"

Without another word Bruce did an abrupt about face, marching away from the witch. He didn't believe in fate, and whatever death was after him, it would not find him while Diana was still in this place. It could try all it wanted to catch him later.

He could feel her eyes following him though. Those twin shades of jade over a poisonous smirk.

* * *

Superman didn't think he'd ever flown so fast in his life.

Not even Flash, running across an ocean half a world away would be able to compete with him right now.

He landed at the coordinates, a lone tower jutting out of the forest grounds like an Obelisk as he landed in the glade.

A doorway appeared, an opening in the rock where he immediately saw Shayera standing beneath the archway.

"Come on hurry up!" She called, a note more than mere impatience in her voice. Urgency.

"Where are the others?" She asked as he came close.

"On their way. What's happening now?"

He entered, the obelisk's interior opening up to an impossible size from its dimensions in the outside world. He followed her brisk pace, matching it easily as she wound her way through the hallways.

"Whatever it is its getting worse. Did you send someone to check on what's her name?"

"Zatanna." He answered. "And yes, Jhon is on his way and will take her up to the watchtower if she's suffering like this."

When they opened the door, Clark found his eyes immediately fixating themselves over Fate, and another woman, brunette, dressed in similar colors hovering over where he lay sprawled over a long-chair.

The woman leaned down, and Clark heard her heavilly accented voice whisper down at the magic wielder. "Husband, The Superman is here."

The thought that Fate had a wife would have made him trip over his own feet on any other occasion.

The masked warlock weakly turned his head to face him, and Clark jumped when a spark of visible electricity forked across the man's body, going from his helmet down to his left side, and taking a closer look Clark noticed that indeed other, smaller sparks of flaring electricity were flicking over his skin.

The stink of magic was heavy in the air as Fate spoke.

"Superman."

"What's going on Fate?"

The man took a long, thin breath, wheezing as his chest rose. "The planes...the dimensions. Something is changing. Something is happening..."

"Where?" He asked, hope fluttering in his chest. "Does this have something to do with Bruce and Diana?"

"It...is the only...possibility, that I can conceive of." He rasped.

Clark's smile was ear to ear, turning on Shayera with a nearly barked laugh. "Just like Bruce to raze hell. Literately!"

His joy is brought short when Fate hisses through his helmet. "_Fool."_ Electricity dances across the man's flesh, and he shudders as though wracked by the bolts. "No _mortal_ could do this!"

Clark crossed his arms over his barrel chest. "Well you obviously thought he was involved."

"Involved, does not equate to causative." He grunted, hunching over with a pained spasm. "The portal, the opening...I need you and the others here, if something besides your Batman emerges I will not have the-_augh_." He screamed, a full on cry wrenched from his throat before the brunette pushed him back down to where he lay, the bolts of magic catching her hand as it lingered, making her pull back as though burned, or shocked.

Clark nodded, the full gravity of the situation reaching him, but his elation at the possibility of his friends imminent return bringing a smile to his face regardless.

They were coming _home_.

* * *

The ground cracked.

It happened like the sudden snapping of a teacups finger loop, one moment it was fine, the next, the crack had simply split the rock in two.

Black water bubbled up from between the stone, rising to spread the moaning faces of damned souls and the ghostly arms of souls rising up like mist, or steam.

Bruce cradled Diana closer, plunging through the water that seeped through the armor's boots as though it wasn't even there, ice cold to the point of pain, he would have shivered if he wasn't already running.

Behind him, the howling, blood chilling screams of the underworld chased after him, inhuman things that he knew he would hear in his dreams for years to come emerging from whatever pit the realm of the underworld was fast becoming.

He wasn't sure when he passed the gates, maybe he never had, maybe he had without ever even realizing it, but whatever the case, he found himself in the place where he'd landed, web pattern cracks gouging their way into the stone work from the encircling river of Styx

He knelt, still holding the groaning Diana close as he propped her back over his raised knee, uncoiling his arm from her legs and searching the suit compartment. "Diana. Stay with me. We're almost out of this.

A roar. Somewhere behind him, somewhere dark and impossible, Bruce felt terror snake down his spine. _Hades._ He thought, nearly swearing to hear the chiming laughter of the witch answering fury with mockery.

But Diana stole his attention again he saw her eyes roll, her body convulse, racking with sudden coughs, he held her head trying to see what was wrong. "Diana! Diana!"

He set her down, her raven hair fanning out behind her in waves of black as he hunched over her, holding her head still as she thrashed. "Diana. Diana listen to me. Listen to my voice."

She shook her head. The words barely worthy of being called whispers. _'No...no no."_

"Diana. Listen to me. Listen to me and come back!"

"NO!"

Her shout was as sudden as the hands that drove themselves up and into his chest, pushing him clear off the floor to slam back down to the ground, with the air expelled from his lungs.

His chest throbbing with pain, he began to struggle to his feet.

He saw her, both hands clutching at her skull, her eyes wild and red with tears as she grit her teeth. "No. No get out! **Get out of my head! YOU'RE NOT HIM**"

"Diana." He coughed, his voice straining as he kept trying to suck down air. "Calm down. Its me Bruce!"

She screamed springing on him with more speed than he thought she'd be capable of. He rolled in time to avoid her fist, watching the delicate looking digits bore a hole straight through the stonework.

But he barely managed to even get to his knees before she kicked him. This time her strike resulted in a broken rib, rather than just a lack of air.

He moved as soon as he hit the floor this time, trying to reach his feet as she advanced on him, rushing him as fast as she could in her weakened state.

"Diana listen to me-"

"Stop it! Stop it! **Stop!**"

He dodged her first strike, the pain flaring up through his whole body as his lungs seized, he stumbled at the second, his whole chest constricting in an excruciating spasm before her third punch drove itself into one of the now unarmored sections of his suit, allowing a fully powered amazonian upper cut to drive itself into his torso.

Bruce screamed, barely even reaching the floor before Diana's foot caught him across the temple, shattering the left side of his mask. He felt his neck crack, the only reason his head hadn't come clean off was the suits reinforced plating.

His eyes swam, dizzy, he saw Diana's crazed eyes over him for a moment before her fist snapped down again, striking at the right side of his helmet with a brutal hit.

His hand reached down,, digging into a hip compartment when her fist came down again, his other arm snaking out, striking at her throat before her blow landed with pin point precision, she choked, sputtering and coughing after a blow that would have crushed the windpipe of a normal human, allowing the billionaire enough of an opening to push her off, rolling to his knees before his other hand pulled out a glass orb, glowing an eerie green in his palm.

He threw it down, shattering it over the cracking cobblestones.

Bruce heard a rumble not entirely unlike rolling thunder. He glanced up a jade cloud swirling above them, a dot of color in the void black overhead.

He heard Diana's footstep, turning as fast as his injuries would allow, Bruce saw her fist coming, barely in time to get to his feet and step away away, the blow grazed his forearm. It still felt like someone swung a crowbar into his limb. He stumbled, nearly loosing his own feet before she kicked at him.

He raised up his arm, jumping slightly her foot smashed into the spot just under his arm letting him hook it over and hold her angle against his armpit, his lack of footing now allowing him to absorb most of the blow as it pushed him to the side. without it snapping every rib where she'd hit.

He tried to hold her, tried to summon the strength just long enough to stall, but his limbs felt like rubber, and though wild, and injured herself, she was still beyond human, beyond the strength of any man, even him.

She ripped herself free, her foot coming down in a harsh stomp that only added to the power of her next blow.

Bruce tried to raise his arm, to bat her away, to move, but she was too fast, too strong, her fist slipping right past whatever guard he had been trying to put up before smashing straight into his heart the sheer force enough to make the organ fail as it hemorrhaged.

Bruce flew, his armored body striking the stone with a sound not entirely dissimilar to a crashing car.

_'Can you feel her embrace yet?' _Came Persephone's slithering taunt.

"_But we all know how such stories end. All in one form of failure or another." _Were Hades self assured words.

He'd said he aimed to be the exception then.

And as he landed on the stones again, fortunate enough to land on his back, facing skyward where the familiar boy scout dressed in red and blue descended with a red headed Thannagarian, Bruce knew at least, that she would get out...escape from this place. He released whatever air was left to him in a sigh of relief.

As far as he was concerned. Diana would escape this place...there was no failure to be found in that.

* * *

Next chapter: The epilogue.


	17. Chapter 17

He woke with a gasp. It was sudden. Like being dunked in ice water, the beeping drone of a heart monitor loud in his skull.

His heart.

His heart was pounding in his chest, thundering his blood through his veins until it was all he could hear.

His vision swam, a blur of colors and light, too much light.

He hears a voice..._her_ voice. Somewhere, its distant, or perhaps she's close? He's not sure.

_'J'hon!'_

He's trying to breathe, but he cant.

Something...something on his face.

Is it his mask? He reaches, barely feeling his limb responding.

_'Batman. Batman!'_

He hears J'hon's voice, hears it in his head more than his ears, sees glowing orange eyes looming over him a second later before its lost in an ocean of swimming colors, white, blue, green, colors everywhere, and too much light.

J'hon's calling him. Calling him but he wonders where Diana is. He heard her voice before...he knows he did.

He got her out.

He must have.

He wouldn't have left without her.

He tries to talk...to think. J'hon would hear him thinking, but he can't. His mind is muddled, his thoughts disjointed and hazed.

But he wants to know. Wants to make sure...He wants to ask, but he can't, whatever abyss he came back from is pulling him down again, the glow of J'hon's eyes and his ever fading voice following after him.

* * *

"You should get some rest."

Kal's voice startled her, making her head snap upright from where she'd been leaning against the wall.

He looks the same as ever, dark hair, dressed in blue and red. Only the lines of worry creasing around his eyes show any real change in him.

She opens her mouth, ready to protest, but its an old routine now, and Kal opens his mouth, insisting, chastising before she can tell him she wants to stay here a while longer yet. "Diana."

Her lips close, blue eyes meeting blue eyes and she shakes her head. "He woke up."

"And J'hon isn't sure when in the next week that's going to happen again."

"But Kal I-"

The man of steel comes closer, dragging a seat over so he can speak with her at eye-level when he sits.

"Diana." He pauses, as if searching for words. "Look. I-I know what its like to screw up. Ok? Its happened to me, hell, its happened to all of us. All of us make mistakes at one point or another."

"I nearly killed him Kal. Even with Fate's magic I-what I've done to him. It could-"

"Bruce wouldn't want you hurting yourself like this."

Her face twists, and both of them know that his words don't make her feel any better.

His lips purse, half in sorrow, half in something else before he speaks again. "Diana. Go. Get yourself cleaned up, some food, and come back. Ok? I promise I'll stay here and call you if anything changes."

"But-"

"Please Diana?" He's practically begging her with his voice. "If not for me, or for you for Bruce. Come on?" Its a low blow, they both know it, but they can both forgive him for it.

She finally nods, finally stands after _hours_, feeling the stiffness in her muscles and the soreness of her bones.

And Kal keeps his word, as she knew he would. He stays by Bruce's bedside without complaint for nearly two hours before she walks back in, bathed and fed. He tries to make some more small talk, but she admits to herself to not exactly being the best company. Her answers are short and clipped, merely smiling or nodding when she could get away with it. Not really hearing every word. Just enough to make it seem like it.

He may have noticed. And perhaps tomorrow she'll feel the urge to apologize for it. But for now, she's grateful when he leaves her to her quasi solitude.

The heart monitor drones on, its constant, rhythmic beeping a comfort to her. His heart still moved. Despite what she'd done he was still alive.

* * *

She wasn't sure when she falls asleep but she wakes, to someone else standing in the room.

It is a stranger, dressed in a suit, familiar in the same way a stranger you know you've seen before is familiar. Known yet alien.

She moves to stand, but finds her limbs bound, feels herself being pressed down by some unseen force into her chair, holding her still as she sucks in a startled breath.

"Now now Amazon. Thou should not exert thine self after such a terrible ordeal in the underworld. Sit. Do not mind me."

Even in a mortal guise she recognized his voice, his familiar, alien presence immediately becoming identifiable.

"Ares." She spat out his name like a curse.

"Yes. Me. Were you expecting perhaps my good uncle? Or his witch of a wife?" The god of war chuckled.

"You come to take me for invoking The Herald."

She saw his face twist with distaste. "Though I would like nothing more, my Uncle's interference has complicated such matters. No my dear, I come for this one."

Her stomach dropped into a pit, her heart beating a harsh staccato against her rib cage as Ares inhuman, burning gaze turned towards the sleeping Dark Knight.

She pulled and pushed, thrashed against whatever restraints held her fast as best she could, even trying to break the chair itself, but whatever magic held her down did its work well.

"Such a shame." He said, ignoring her struggles like one who ignored a chirping bird. "One of the greatest mortal warriors...crippled by you."

She grit her teeth, her muscles straining as she tried to break free.

"Such a man should be lauded and praised for his valor. The only one to ever return alive from the realms of the dead and instead he is reduced to a grotesque mocke-"

"What do you want?"

He smiles, and it is a cruel thing on an equally cruel face. "Why, I wish to return him to a state fit for a warrior." He answers blithely.

"And your price?"

He looks straight at her, and she knows the answer. Its obvious. He wants the amazonian princess that was denied her, Bruce's martial skill is only a bonus, perhaps just an afterthought.

Fickle, arrogant and prideful. The God of war always sought to right some slight, real or imagined.

"A price must be paid for his restoration, and who better to pay it than the wench who has crippled him?"

"This isn't about some sense of poetic justice." She spat. "So don't pretend otherwise."

"It isn't." He admits with a lazy shrug. "Mother, Artemis, _Athena_" He hisses out the last name. "They'll give much to see thee safe. And if they do not then I keep my prize. I stand to loose nothing and gain much."

"Their wrath-"

"Means nothing." He interrupted. The glint of his teeth could be seen again. "Or have thee so recently forgotten that it was _I_ who interceded my good uncles path into the mortal realm while Father and Poseidon's hands were tied? Olympus is in _my_ debt as much as you mortals."

She could feel the words lodge in her throat. Ares was always held in check by the quick intervention of Hera and Zeus. But if because of his assistance they had to allow some...indulgences...

Was that why they were not here now? Were they looking on with impotent frustration?

"So what say you Amazon?" He stretched out his hand, and Diana found she could move again, her limbs released from whatever hold had gripped them. "Take my offer, and I will restore the good Bruce Wayne to his rightful place as a warrior fit for battle. Not some crippled lark."

She looked at his hand, thin digits that could curl into a cruel fist at a moments notice.

To take this bargain...it might mean the end of her if Hera could not free her in due time.

But Bruce...Bruce didn't deserve this...what she'd done...

To not be Batman anymore...it would destroy him as surely as remaining in the underworld would have destroyed her.

She lifted her hand.

"Don't you dare."

His voice was low, a dry rasp from an all too dry throat it made her jump, swiveling her head around to look at the barely focused eyes of a conscious Bruce Wayne.

"Ahh. Mr. Wayne" The God of war sneered. "Joining us? And here the Amazon was just getting ready to pry thee out of your sickbed."

"Thanks. I'm sure she can manage on her own. You can leave."

Ares features tightened. Bruce's disrespect would try anyone's patience, let alone someone as infamously short tempered as the God of War.

"Perhaps thine should be made aware that I-"

"Am the god of war? That you just offered to heal me of some crippling injury in exchange for Diana? Yes. I am aware. There's the door."

Now Ares impatience bloomed into a full fury across his face. "You insolent cur! I will-" He raised his hand, and in a flash of light the God of Olympus vanished from the room.

* * *

"I see thine son is as brazenly stupid as ever." One goddess spoke to another. "The terms thou laid out were fairly simple, 'Do not harm the mortals.' a child could have understood the message and yet-"

"His temper has always gotten the better of him." Hera answered. "But thou knew that." She smiled. "Which is why thine sent Aphrodite to wake the most infuriating man on the whole of the sphere to drive him to anger."

Athena shrugged, smiling innocently. "She has commented on her frustration regarding those two for some time. I may have perhaps let slip something about a good opportunity."

* * *

The sudden quiet in the room was almost as startling as the God's abrupt appearance itself; the two remaining occupants of the med bay blinking in confused bewilderment.

Finally, it was Diana that broke the silence, turning her eyes away from the expanse of the empty room to the Wayne Patriarch. "Bruce?"

He looked at her, mentally debating the merits of asking her to raise the watchtower's intruder alarm, for whatever little good they would do against an Olympian. "Princess."

They stared at each other, him waiting for her to break the silence, she herself not knowing exactly how to do so.

Finally...she settled on the thing most prevalent in her thoughts at the moment.

"Did you just essentially tell the God of War to 'fuck off'?"

He smiled. In a way that was just distinctly him. "No. I told him to _'Please_ fuck off.'"

Her mouth dropped open, incredulous, flabbergasted, utter disbelief shining through her whole face before her lips rose in a smile, the first one in what felt like _years_. Then she was laughing. Giggling and guffawing in pure histerics. She even snorted once, her chest burned with lack of air, her eyes stung with disbelieving tears.

Bruce watched her, his own softer smile lifting his features as he took it in. She was disheveled, dressed all a mess with clothes that looked like they'd more belong to the Flash than herself.

But she was here, safe, and as long as those two things were true she could dress like a hillbilly for all he cared.

When she managed to compose herself again, she saw that Bruce had his eyes closed, she wondered if he'd fallen asleep again. "Bruce?"

"Hmm?" He asked, tilting his head to her, but not bothering to open his eyes yet.

"Bruce...there's something you should know."

"I have a heart condition." He said, so blasé, and nonchalant she felt as though she'd been slapped.

This time, he did open his eyes. Gesturing towards the bag slowly dripping fluids into his system, and the other next to it. "Even if Ares hadn't said anything- Anti-arrhythmic drugs. J'hon set the IV low, so that tells me my condition is stable, just taking precautions, a defibrillator behind me. And the last thing I remember is your fist hitting right over my chest."

The silence between them was heavy to her, she wasn't sure if it was an accusation or just a statement, but the guilt welled up in her like some overflowing cauldron, threatening to choke her as the back of her eyes stung again in that now familiar pinprick of tears.

"Bruce...if I...I didn't kno-"

"Diana."

She looked back at him, ready to face whatever lay in his face, accusation, anger, resentment...

It was a palpable relief when all she saw in those blue eyes was simple forgiveness. "It's alright princess."

"Not its not." She snapped back, the guilt still clawing at her. "You went down into _hell_ for me. You fought a _God_ and I-I did-"

"And I'd do it all again." He interrupted her, as firmly as he could.

And Diana let her head fall, gratitude, stifled only by choking despair.

"Even if that means you might never be Batman again?"

She heard him shift on the bed. She pushed on, heedless. If he was going to hear this from anyone...it was going to be from her. "Your heart...it all but collapsed Bruce. The only reason you're even alive is because of Fate and his wife. They used every ounce of magic they could at the time to stabilize you. Even then...even with _magic_ you nearly died. Your heart is so fragile and the damage...right now neither Fate nor J'hon are sure if they can ever pull you to a full recovery even if you were to get some kind of transplant. I-"

She stopped, feeling a hand bringing her face up, she looked at Bruce, who was leaning over the edge of the bed, a pained grimace over his features due to his position. But regardless he looked at her dead in the eye.

"Again." He recited simply. "In a heartbeat. And I'll beat down Ares door too if you're stupid enough to accept his deal."

And she didn't doubt it...

He pulled away, moving to lay back on his bed, and she followed, a sudden bout of reckless courage driving her forward, and the Amazonian's lips fell over his own.

* * *

Deep in the pits of the land of the dead. The witch known to mortals as Persephone smiled to herself, twisted, lilting and ambiguous.

"Good girl. The interesting ones never take the simple steps on their own. You should thank her boy. It is only when you fall; that you learn just how far you can **fly**"


End file.
